Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-020-00998-8

by mleonhard • 5 years ago

66 75 5 years ago

nicoburns2• 5 years ago

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by social and behavioral impairments, along with restricted interests and repetitive behaviors.

This seems like a very negative view of autism.

rsstack5• 5 years ago

An honest question: is there a Positive or even neutral one-line summary of ASD?

macksd2• 5 years ago

There's a movement to reframe things like autism as neurodiversity rather than strictly a disorder. I suppose the emphasis in that case would instead be on things people can do well, not what they do wrong by everyone else's standard.

DanBC• 5 years ago

We could re-write

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by [...] restricted interests and repetitive behaviors.

ASD is characterized by an ability to focus intently on an area of special interest, developing an unusually detailed level of knowledge of that topic.

There's always a tension with efforts to depathologise things, because some people do need support and the way they get support at the moment is via diagnosis.

13rac12• 5 years ago

How about a list of people who have/had it:

Tim Burton – Movie Director / Lewis Carroll – Author of “Alice in Wonderland” / Charles Darwin – Naturalist, Geologist, and Biologist / Emily Dickinson – Poet / Albert Einstein – Scientist & Mathematician / Bobby Fischer – Chess Grandmaster / Bill Gates – Co-founder of the Microsoft Corporation / Temple Grandin – Animal Scientist / Thomas Jefferson – Early American Politician / Steve Jobs – Former CEO of Apple / Stanley Kubrick – Film Director / Barbara McClintock – Scientist and Cytogeneticist / Michelangelo – Sculptor, Painter, Architect, Poet / Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Classical Composer / Sir Isaac Newton – Mathematician, Astronomer, & Physicist / Nikola Tesla – Inventor / Andy Warhol – Artist

https://www.appliedbehavioranalysisprograms.com/historys-30-...

tokai3• 5 years ago

Seems neutral to me. If there wasn't any impairment it wouldn't be a subject for medical psychiatry.

alisonkisk4• 5 years ago

"behavioral impairment" is a social judgement, not a biological flaw.

Homosexuality was long considered a psychiatric disorder, so be careful putting blind faith in psychiatric judgements.

throwaway22453• 5 years ago

It might be neutral if they listed specific attributes (or said the word 'attribute' rather than 'impairment').

Saying only 'impairment' implies that all attributes associated with autism are negative compared to some mythical baseline, and creates a circular definition which stigmatises autistic people.

d0mine• 5 years ago

By this logic being a screwdriver is an impairment in a world of hammers.

A neutral approach would acknowledge that hammers are good at certain tasks, while screwdrivers are good at others.

JPKab• 5 years ago

Something that has struck out to me for many years now is the rather striking lack of reporting on the incredibly strong correlation between parental (both maternal/paternal) age at time of conception and ASM.

My nephew is autistic. He is my sister's youngest, and is 10 years younger than his sibling. This isn't a coincidence.

Parents who have their children in their mid 30s and later are orders of magnitude more likely to have an autistic child than people who conceive in their 20s/early 30s. It's a massive increase in probability.

I've found that the topic of delayed parenthood and the very real health impacts it results in are almost taboo amongst the media elites who have driven huge amounts of attention to autism due to so many of them having autistic kids. An additional topic related to this that goes undiscussed is the massive increase in twins (and consequentially premature births) caused by couples who had to use fertility drugs to conceive for the same reason.

I want to emphasize that I'm not criticizing anyone for making the decision to delay having kids until they are older. I just wish it was discussed more because I personally think that corporate structures should be changed to not punish women for having kids. It's a horrible injustice that our most successful citizens are forced to suffer medical side-effects because corporations were designed for men, and sweeping discussion of these side-effects under the rug results in flawed approaches like Sandberg describes in "Lean In", where the solution is to just embrace the existing structure to a ridiculous degree. It's horrifying to me that work culture has impacted human culture to a point where we are forced to step in and correct for biology.

SubiculumCode7• 5 years ago

Paternal (not maternal) age is highly correlated with ne novo mutations, a portion of which are associated with autism, depending on the location of the mutation. Perhaps this is less well known among news reporters, but among autism researchers, paternal age is often considered as an important factor, and is well accepted in that respect.

Edit: I am a post-doc at the autism institute at which this research was conducted. While I am not associated with this research, Judy does solid, impactful research, and I know beyond a doubt that she is aware of the association between autism and de novo mutations in older fathers.

adaml_6232• 5 years ago

Lots of discussions about the multiple birth thing. Medical research too.

https://consumer.healthday.com/disabilities-information-11/c...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/02/doctors-urge...

lc9er• 5 years ago

Something that has struck out to me for many years now is the rather striking lack of reporting on the incredibly strong correlation between parental (both maternal/paternal) age at time of conception and ASM.

I thought this was common knowledge? I’ve certainly read this frequently and it’s something that is brought up (anecdotally) by OB/GYNs as women enter their 30’s. My wife and several family members ruefully will tell stories about how their doc let them know that they’ll be considered of “advanced maternal age” when they hit 35. They were then reminded of the increased risk of birth defects, autism, and complications.

TeMPOraL• 5 years ago

Perhaps not common enough. For instance, both my wife and I knew about the ~35 point of "advanced maternal age" and that there are risks associated with late conception, but it's the first time I hear autism is one of these risks.

valarauko• 5 years ago

“advanced maternal age” when they hit 35

I'm old enough (ironically) that I was taught the term as "geriatric pregnancy"

0b01• 5 years ago

Autism is a slow life history spectrum disorder. You can read more about this theory in evopsych by looking up M Del Giudice papers.

dragonwriter5• 5 years ago

Something that has struck out to me for many years now is the rather striking lack of reporting on the incredibly strong correlation between parental (both maternal/paternal) age at time of conception and ASM.

Thee's a strong link to paternal age that seems well established. Maternal age effects seem to be all over the map: I've seen weaker positive correlation with advancing maternal age than paternal age, no correlation with maternal age, and negative correlation with maternal age in different studies (possibly with varying degrees of controlling for other known contributors; e.g., apparently women with autism tend to have first children older, which by itself can create the impression of a maternal age effect of not controlled for.)

scruple• 5 years ago

An additional topic related to this that goes undiscussed is the massive increase in twins

That's not just the realm of IVF. My wife and I have fraternal twins. She was 35 when we conceived. It turns out that as women approach menopause they may drop more than one egg during ovulation. This effect is noticed dramatically at age 35. I think I recall reading that your chances of a natural twins birth goes from < 1% to > 4% at age 35...

And, of course, in addition to that, once you have your first multiples pregnancy the odds of any subsequent pregnancy being a multiples also goes up.

hobos_delight2• 5 years ago

For anyone interested in the history of ASD, I highly recommend the book NeuroTribes [1] - I read this shortly after my son was diagnosed with ASD and it goes through a lot of history, up to the most recent DSM V definition.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeuroTribes

SubiculumCode7• 5 years ago

I agree, and own the book, and have had lunch with the author, but I would just add that NeuroTribes represents a very opinionated take on autism that has some sharp critics.

hobos_delight2• 5 years ago

Yes, thank you for the addition.

The book was the first thing I read after we received the diagnosis for my son - although a friend had recommended it prior to this.

It also helped me as person feel less different and accepting of myself (I do not have an ASD diagnosis).

ryanmarsh• 5 years ago

Just diagnosed ASD at age 42. So I bought this book. Very enlightening.

sjg0072• 5 years ago

This is mind blowing... if I understand correctly basically it’s moms immune system that induces autism, is this the correct interpretation? I’d imagine it’s more complicated but still... it gives hope that early intervention and maybe prenatal and postnatal treatments to reduce the incidence.

msandford• 5 years ago

What's super crazy is that if it's an autoimmune problem then the idea that vaccines cause autism might actually be right for a very small percentage of the population. If that were to be true (a HUGE if) and we could figure out the precursor markers then we could exempt the folks who need exemption and still keep herd immunity by vaccinating all the folks who wouldn't be harmed.

sjg0072• 5 years ago

That's a bigger leap but testable. You'd expect to find antibodies in the child for the brain proteins that aren't present in the mom.

SubiculumCode7• 5 years ago

As usual, while scientists cannot prove a negative, in terms of vaccine causing autism in a subset, all I can say that there is no proposed mechanism, nor evidence of that mechanism, for vaccines to cause autism in anyone.

SubiculumCode7• 5 years ago

A growing body of evidence has implicated that a portion of the autism spectrum is probably produced my maternal infection and subsequent immune response during pregnancy. However, this cause of autism is not thought to account for all forms of autism.

Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

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