Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs often begin before a child is three years old.
A study, led by Dr. Xiaosi Gu, outlines alternations in pain perception faced by people on the autism spectrum and how those changes can affect them in social functions. 1) Autism may increase sensitivity to pain
Autistic children had normal plasma and urinary thiamine levels whereas plasma TPP concentration was decreased. The latter may be linked to abnormal tissue handling and/or absorption from gut microbiota of TPP which warrants further investigation. Increased plasma protein dityrosine may reflect increased dual oxidase activity in response to change in mucosal immunity and host-microbe homeostasis. 2)
The prevalence of autism in the United States has increased significantly over the past twenty years. Using information from state birth records and case records of patients affiliated with the California Department of Health Services, Bearman and colleagues estimate that approximately 25 percent of the increased prevalence of autism observed in California between 1992 and 2005 is due to changes in how autism is diagnosed.3)
Dr. Bearman and colleagues recently published that there are certain geographical areas of California where babies are more likely to develop autism (see right). The authors point out that localized “clusters” of autism suggests that environmental factors such as increased public awareness and local advocacy may play a role. However, clusters of disease may just as well suggest autism is caused by a communicable infection such as the slow-growing chronic infection described by the Marshall Pathogenesis.
Growing evidence exists to conclude that autism spectrum disorder is driven by microbial pathogens.
Persistent co-infections are generally a sign of an immune system disabled by the Th1 pathogens. It's telling to note that there remains no conclusive evidence for any single kind of virus always present in patients with autism.
autism, ADHD, depression, severe anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)
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Interviews of patients with other diseases are also available.
As described in Psychology Today, autism and being a prodigy are closely related:
Ruthsatz found that both the first-degree families of individuals with autism and the first-degree families of prodigies in her sample displayed three out of five common traits of autism: impaired social skills, impaired ability to switch attention, and heightened attention to detail. This intrigued her, so she decided to look for autism in her current sample of prodigies.
Lo and behold, while about one in every 88 children in the United States is diagnosed with autism, four out of the eight prodigies in the current study had family members who either had an autism diagnosis or had a first- or second-degree relative with an autism diagnosis. Additionally, three of the prodigies had already been diagnosed with autism, and as a group they showed higher levels of autistic traits compared with a control group consisting of people weren't prodigies (but scored only slightly higher than those with high-functioning autism, or Asperger's.
This may be a case where the exact interaction among microbes, known as the interactome, may contribute both to illness as well as exceptional cognitive abilities.