General Health Tips:Researchers Put Another Piece Of The Autism Puzzle In Place
Article Summary:
autism? Not its cause, not a cure, not a means to prevent it, not a fully effective treatment. Researchers have identified a number of genes associated
Article Content:
HEALTH TIP: Researchers Put Another Piece of the Autism
Puzzle in Place
What has more than 65 years of research uncovered about
autism? Not its cause, not a cure, not a means to prevent it,
not a fully effective treatment. Researchers have identified
a number of genes associated with the disorder and some
studies suggest that people with autism have abnormal levels
of serotonin and other neurotransmitters in the brain. Other
studies of people with autism have found irregularities in
several regions of the brain. But intriguing new research
by scientists at the University of North Carolina actually
pinpoints the time when these brain anomalies occur, findings
that experts say are critical in developing new ways to treat
and diagnose autism earlier.
For the study, Dr. Matthew W. Mosconi and his colleagues at
UNC took magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 50
children with autism and 33 controls—22 typically developing
children and 11 who were developmentally delayed—between 18
and 35 months and again between 42 and 59 months.
Participants also underwent tests that looked for certain
behavioral features of autism. The researchers found that
at both time points, the amygdala region of the brain,
which is associated with controlling emotions, regulating
attention and reading social cues from eye contact, in the
children with autism was larger than the toddlers in the
control group. “The amygdala plays a critical role in early-
stage processing of facial expression and in alerting
cortical areas to the emotional significance of an event,”
the authors wrote. “Amygdala disturbances early in
development, therefore, disrupt the appropriate assignment
of emotional significance to faces and social interaction.”
The researchers said after observing the children that the
enlarged amygdala appeared consistent with something called
joint attention, or the ability of a young child to follow
another person’s gaze and to share attention with others;
behaviors thought to predict later social and language
function. “We would basically try to get the child to look
one way, we’d turn and point to a clock and see whether or
not the child would notice it,” explained Dr. Joseph Piven,
director of UNC’s Neurodevelopmental Disorders Research
Center and one of the study’s authors. “The two-year-olds
without autism would see your face, see where you are
looking and join you but the children with autism, with
large amygdalas, would not.”
“We believe that children with autism have normal-sized
brains at birth but at some point, in the latter part of
the first year of life, it (the amygdala) begins to grow
in kids with autism,” said Piven. “Once we understand the
neurological circuits, we may be able to detect if a child
has problems in those circuits as early as 6 months of age.
We need to let the pattern of early brain development guide
us to predict who is at higher risk and who would benefit
from early intervention.”
The team continues to follow study participants to determine
whether amygdala growth rates continue at the same rate,
speed up or slow down in children with autism after age four.
“Studying this relationship as these children develop will
shed important light on the neurobiological basis of autism,”
Piven said. UNC researchers are also recruiting 500 infants
who are also sibling of children with autism for a follow-up
to their initial findings. “By tracking the behaviors and
brain volume growth from birth in high-risk babies, we can
pinpoint when the brain first begins to grow larger than
normal and provide therapy or medications to limit the
growth or symptoms a lot earlier than we are doing now,”
said Piven.
“What they’re doing at UNC is really starting to define in
the brain what’s going on with someone who has autism,” said
Scott Badesch, chief executive of the Autism Society of North
Carolina. “That gives us an ability as providers to address
those needs.” Badesch said recent scientific findings,
including an announcement last week about a new genetic clue
for up to 15 percent of cases, are offering hope to families
struggling with the disorder. “We’re beginning to find things,
and the next question is what, if anything, we can do regarding
treatment or a cure.”
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Provenge helps in fighting prostate cancer
SEATTLE — U.S. scientists have determined sipuleucel-T, a
prostate cancer immunotherapy drug, significantly prolongs
survival in men with advanced prostate cancer. A Phase 3
trial showed sipuleucel-T (Provenge) improved survival in
men with metastatic disease. The Seattle-based Dendreon
Corp., manufacturer of the drug, said compared with placebo,
sipuleucel-T extended median survival by 4.1 months and
improved three-year survival by 38 percent. The researchers
said Sipuleucel-T successfully exceeded the pre-specified
level of statistical significance defined by the study’s
design and reduced the overall risk of death by 22.5 percent,
as compared with placebo. More than 500 patients took part
in the multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-
controlled study. “The ability to boost survival for patients
is the gold standard endpoint in prostate cancer clinical
trials,” said AUA spokesman Dr. Ira Sharlip, MD. “The ability
to give these patients both increased survival and possibly,
improved quality of life, is very important.” Sipuleucel-T
is an investigational therapy for men with androgen-indepen-
dent prostate cancer. It is an active cellular immunotherapy
designed to use live human cells to boost a patient’s immune
system to elicit a long-lasting response against cancer. The
trial’s results were presented last week in Chicago during
the American Urological Association’s annual scientific
meeting.
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New method of gene therapy is developed
FLANDERS, Belgium — Flemish scientists say they have devel-
oped an improved and safer technique to deliver genes into
the body’s cells during genetic therapy. Gene therapy is the
introduction of genetic material into a patient’s cells re-
sulting in a cure or a therapeutic effect, said researchers
at the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology in Belgium. The
success of gene therapy ultimately depends on the gene deliv-
ery vehicles, or vectors, and most vectors have been derived
from viruses that can be tailor-made to deliver therapeutic
genes. The drawback is some of the viral vectors can induce
side effects, including cancer and inflammation. Now Marinee
Chuah, Thierry VandenDriessche, Eyayu Belay and colleagues
at the Catholic University of Leuven say they’ve developed a
non-viral approach that overcomes some limitations associated
with viral vectors. The technique is based on non-viral
genetic elements called transposons — mobile DNA elements
– that the scientists constructed to carry therapeutic genes
into the target cell DNA, eliminating the need for viral
vectors. “We show for the first time that it is now possible
to efficiently deliver genes into stem cells, particularly
those of the immune system, using non-viral gene delivery,”
Chuah said. The researchers, in collaboration with Zsuzsanna
Iszvak and Zoltan Ivics and colleagues at the Max Delbrück
Center in Berlin are now testing the technology to treat
specific diseases, including cancer and genetic disorders.
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Mexico says it’s singled out in flu fear
MEXICO CITY — Countermeasures some countries use to mitigate
the outbreak of H1N1 flu prompted Mexican officials to say
their citizens are typecast as virus-carriers. Officials
consider Mexico the epicenter for the H1N1 (swine flu) out-
break that has spread to at least 20 countries. Scientists
haven’t pinpointed the origin of the virus, but the earliest
cases were found in the southwestern United States and Mex-
ico, The New York Times reported. However, the United States
Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta said the H1N1 strain
has genes from flu viruses normally found in pigs in Europe
and Asia, as well as avian and human genes. Chinese author-
ities during the weekend confined dozens of seemingly heal-
thy Mexicans, saying they were trying to isolate passengers
on a flight with at least one infected passenger. The Mex-
ican government accused China of unfairly quarantining its
citizens without regard to accepted public health practices,
and sent a plane to pick them up. Mexican diplomats were also
angered when four Latin American nations suspended flights
from Mexico. In sports, Chilean officials turned down a re-
quest to host two Mexican soccer teams’ championship games,
but later apologized, Mexican Health Minister Jose Angel
Cordova said. Mexican President Felipe Calderon criticized
countries he said were “acting out of ignorance and disinfor-
mation” and taking “repressive, discriminatory measures.”
Some U.S. epidemiologists agreed with Calderon’s assessment,
the Times reported. Dr. Tim Jones, Tennessee’s state epidem-
iologist, said China’s actions were understandable given its
experiences with other flu outbreaks. But just as the United
States will soon ease its mitigation measures, he said he
hoped that Chinese officials “would ease up, too.” Pigs were
destroyed in Egypt, even though world health officials said
the flu cannot be transmitted to humans by eating pork, CNN
reported.
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Confirmed H1N1 cases top 1,500 worldwide
GENEVA, Switzerland — The number of confirmed H1N1 flu
cases worldwide exceeded 1,500 in 22 countries in the tally
issued Wednesday by the World Health Organization in Geneva.
The 1,516 cases, including 30 deaths, did not include the
death of a Texas woman infected with the virus, also known
as swine flu, CNN reported. Texas health officials said the
woman had other chronic medical conditions. The WHO total
confirmed additional cases in Canada and added Guatemala to
the list of countries with lab-confirmed cases. WHO reported
Mexico, thought to be the outbreak’s epicenter, had the most
number of confirmed flu incidents, with 822 cases, including
29 deaths. The United States had 403 cases, including one
death, and Canada reported 165 confirmed cases of H1N1 infec-
tion. Meanwhile, Mexican travelers in China and Chinese trav-
elers in Mexico left stranded when China banned all flights
from Mexico were picked up and flown back to their respective
countries in an agreement reached Tuesday by Mexican and
Chinese leaders, China Daily reported. More than 150 Mexican
citizens were sent under quarantine to four Chinese airports
to return home on a chartered flight. About 200 Chinese citi-
zens were expected to return home Wednesday. In Japan, Chief
Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura ordered the health ministry
Wednesday to prepare for a possible upgrade of WHO’s pandemic
alert to Phase 6, the highest level, the Kyodo news agency
reported. “If the phase is upgraded to six, Japan has to do
everything it can do,” Kawamura said. “Japan’s crisis manage-
ment will be put to the test. Kawamura also called on the
health ministry to continue its work to thwart the virus’s
entry into Japan, which so far hasn’t reported any confirmed
cases.
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Car industry science aids cancer therapy
HOUSTON — University of Houston scientists say they are
developing technologies with origins in the automobile i
ndustry to aid in head and neck cancer therapies. Associate
Professor Ali Kamrani, a former auto industry researcher,
and Lei Dong, an assistant professor at the University of
Texas are developing predictive models of tumors that they
said will hopefully increase the accuracy of radiation
therapy. “We aim to better understand tumor deformations
using geometric and statistical models rather than repetitive
CT scans,” said Kamrani. “In this case, patients will undergo
a minimum number of CT scans, and the radiation plans will
be developed using the predictive models.” Traditional
computed tomography sessions require a large series of two-
dimensional X-ray images that, when combined, provide de-
tailed three-dimensional images of many types of tissue.
Kamrani said reducing the number of CT scans will reduce a
patient’s risk to unwanted radiation. Dong called Kamrani’s
idea of applying auto prototyping tools to tumor modeling
“novel.” “It can help us solve the problem,” he said.
“There’s a big workflow issue. If we do replanning every day
and re-CT every day, that’s lot of effort. We’re thinking
there is a better, smarter way.”
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Stem Cells May Restore Female Fertility
Rather than sticking to a schedule set by social convention,
more and more women are opting to wait until their late 30s
and early 40s to have children. In 2005, ten times as many
women had their first child between the ages of 35 and 39 as
in 1975, and thirteen times as many had their first between
40 and 44. There are apparent advantages of waiting to start
a family, including having achieved many personal and career
goals and being more financially stable. In contrast, there
is also a big downside: the longer you wait, the harder it
is to get pregnant. The reason is straightforward—a woman is
born with all the eggs, known as oocytes, she’ll ever have
and over time the supply is depleted. But researchers in
China say it may one day be possible for women to rewind
their biological clocks by repopulating their ovaries with
new eggs using stem cells.
In a study that has been deemed “quite dramatic,” researchers
led by Kang Zou and Ji Wu from the School of Life Science and
Biotechnology at Shanghai Jiao Tong University harvested
cells they call female germline stem cells (FGSC) from the
ovaries of five-day-old and adult mice. The cells were
cultured for more than six months and modified to produce a
green fluorescent protein so they could be easily tracked.
Then the scientists used the FGSC’s to reseed the ovaries of
mice whose eggs had been killed off. The sterilized mice
produced new eggs, and after natural mating, 80 percent went
on to produce healthy offspring that were themselves fertile.
The green protein was present in many of the babies, which
suggests they came from eggs grown from the stem cells. “These
results suggest that oocytes can be regenerated in sterile
recipient females by transplantation of FGSCs,” the study
authors wrote.
This is the first time scientists have obtained cells from an
adult mammal that appear capable of producing new eggs and
healthy offspring. “If you are looking to disprove that
females cannot make new eggs, this paper proves it. It’s a
really significant paper,” said Jonathan L. Tilly, a professor
of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology at Harvard
Medical School. “This is the smoking gun.”
If the findings are confirmed, they could offer a host of new
options for infertile women. For example, those who wish to
delay childbearing or who are facing sterilization as a result
of cancer treatment might be able to stockpile their egg stem
cells for use later in life. Or if women who are infertile
because of their age still harbor the cells, scientists may
be able to find a way to stimulate them into producing new
eggs, some experts say. “We have lot of patients who cannot
get pregnant because they have run out of eggs or their eggs
are of poor quality because of their age. The only option
they have is adoption, which is not so easy, or egg donation,
which means the child would not be their genetic child,” said
Roger G. Gosden, director of reproductive medicine at Cornell
Weill Medical Center in New York, who was not involved in the
research. “The research means egg donation from a fertile
woman might not be necessary because she could have her own
genetic child engineered from her stem cells.”
The findings could also benefit stem cell research by providing
a new source of eggs, which are crucial for producing stem
cell lines tailored to individual patients and diseases but
are difficult to obtain and controversial.
However, some experts remain cautious, saying the work needs
to be replicated more carefully in mice and in other species.
“The aging process of the human egg differs fundamentally
from that of the mouse egg,” said David L. Keefe, a professor
of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of South
Florida. “Except at Disney World, humans are not large mice.”
“This is another chapter in what has been a very controversial
story, where some scientists have gone against the dogma
which states that in mammals, such as mice and humans, all
the progenitor germ cells that could give rise to eggs have
already done so by birth,” said Professor Robin Lovell-Badge,
a researcher into stem cells at the MRC National Institute
for Medical Research in London. “This paper will stimulate
lots of activity in the scientific community, as happens
when any dogma is challenged. This is a good thing. But
what would be unfortunate is if this paper is hyped as a
cure for female infertility. A lot more work is needed to
understand what these new cells really are, and to verify
the findings and the claims.”
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