Understanding the causes of autism and schizophrenia could be a step closer for researchers from the Queensland Brain Institute at The University of Queensland after they unravelled the secret world of the wasp genome.

The neuroscientists were part of an international consortium that has spent four years sequencing the genome of three parasitic wasp species.

Each of the Nasonia wasps is smaller than a pinhead, however they could have an extraordinary impact on the understanding of neurological disorders.

Dr Charles Claudianos is leading a QBI team using information taken from the genomes to study the role of genes, linked to disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.

“These newly sequenced genomes enhance our understanding of genetics and evolution,” Dr Claudianos said.

“They will assist us to better understand how genes common to both humans and insects underpin fundamental cellular and molecular processes, including how the brain works.”

The team will also investigate the genetic and evolutionary relationship between the wasp and the European honeybee Apis mellifera.

QBI researcher Dr Alexandre Cristino said simple organisms, such as the wasp and honeybee, were ideal for studying our brain as they had a high percentage of genes in common with humans.

“Together these organisms provide important new tools for studying the molecular basis of brain function. Using these insect models, we can now examine the role of genes involved in connecting neurons in the brain,” Dr Cristino said.

Dr Claudianos said the benefits of sequencing the Nasonia wasps’ genomes was not limited to the laboratory as they had the ability to attack and kill pests by parasitizing their larvae, making the creatures vital to pest control and food production.

“There are over 600,000 species of these parasitoids in nature that can be used in biological control of agricultural pests and insects that transmit disease,” he said.

“Despite their critical role in providing natural control of many pests, most people are unaware of these helpful insects.”

Researchers at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia report that a brain imaging technique may help in the diagnosis of autism. The reason this is possible is that children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) process language and sound a fraction of a second slower than children who do not have autism, and magnetoencephalography (MEG) allows clinicians to detect this difference.

There has been a flurry of news recently about autism spectrum disorders, and among the reports are those indicating that the neurodevelopmental disorders are more common than originally thought. A study published in the November 2009 issue of Pediatrics, for example, notes that among children ages 3 to 17, slightly more than 1 percent have autism or a related disorder, which is significantly more than the one in 150 statistic that experts have been using since 2003. More recently, researchers found a cluster of higher autism prevalence in California that has yet to be explained.

In the new imaging study, Timothy P.L. Roberts, PhD, vice chair of Radiology Research at Children’s Hospital, and his colleagues used magnetoencephalography, which detects magnetic fields in the brain, to analyze changing magnetic fields in the brains of 25 children with autism spectrum disorders and 17 controls. The children wore a helmet, through which they were given a series of recorded beeps, vowels, and sentences. The MEG machine analyzed the changing magnetic fields in each child’s brain as he or she responded to each sound.

In response to sounds, the children with ASDs had an average delay of 11 milliseconds in their brain responses when compared with the control children. Among the children with ASD, all the delays were similar, regardless of whether the child had a language impairment.

The significance of this albeit slight delayed response, says Roberts, is that “the auditory system may be slower to develop and mature in children with ASDs.” The delay is enough, he continues so that “a child with ASD, on hearing the word ‘elephant’ is still processing the ‘el’ sound while other children have moved on.”

The investigators acknowledge that more research is needed before this brain imaging technique becomes a standard diagnostic tool for autism. Roberts notes that their discovery “may be refined into the first imaging biomarker for autism.”

Autism and related development disorders are becoming more common, with a prevalence rate approaching 1 percent among American 8-year-olds, according to new data from researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The study is a partnership between UAB, the CDC and 10 other U.S. research sites. It shows that one in 110 American 8-year-olds is classified as having an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a 57 percent increase in ASD cases compared to four years earlier.

The new findings, published Dec. 18 in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), highlight the need for social and educational services to help those affected by the condition, said Beverly Mulvihill, Ph.D., a UAB associate professor of public health and co-author on the study.

ASDs are a group of developmental disabilities such as autism and Asperger disorder that are characterized by delays or changes in childhood socialization, communication and behavior.

“This is a dramatic increase in the number of kids classified as autistic or documented on the spectrum of similar disorders,” Mulvihill said. “It is not entirely clear what is causing the rise, but we know major collaborative efforts are needed to improve the understanding and lives of people and families impacted.”

The MMWR study discusses possible factors that might contribute to the increase in ASD cases. They include a broader definition of autism disorders and a heightened awareness of ASD by parents, doctors, educators and other professionals. The findings do not address whether or not any of the increase is attributable to a true increase in the risk of developing ASD, more frequent and earlier diagnoses, and other factors.

Data comes from the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network, a collection of 11 sites in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Wisconsin. ADDM reviewers are uniformly trained to review and confirm cases; some children included in the study have documented ASD symptoms but never received a diagnosis.

The study also found that boys are 4.5 times more likely than girls to have ASD, a finding that confirms earlier studies, says Martha Wingate, Dr.P.H., a UAB assistant professor of public health and study co-author.

“It still is not clear why males more frequently are affected,” Wingate said. “One thing we know for sure is that more research is needed to quantify the effects of single or multiple factors such as diagnosis patterns, inclusion of milder cases and other components.”

There has been a major increase in the number of children diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders over the last two decades – the question is why? Researchers have found a sharp difference between the beliefs of ordinary people and medical experts about the reasons for the increased incidence of autism.

Expert consensus is that the rapid increase is a result of changes in diagnostic practice, but many lay people directly or indirectly affected by the disorder believe that the number of cases have increased in absolute terms. Many also believe that increasing incidence is the result of exposure to new environmental hazards and other effects of modern lifestyles.

A study carried out by researchers from the universities of Exeter and Bristol examined the ideas put forward in unsolicited correspondence to scientists carrying out research into the causes of autism. “Our study highlights the contrast between lay explanations of the increasing prevalence of autism and the consensus opinion of medical experts,” says researcher Ginny Russell. “It also demonstrates the strength of lay belief that the rise is due to risks from modern technologies and changing lifestyles, showing a latent unease with these developments.”

The researchers, from Egenis, a research centre at the University of Exeter, and the department of community based medicine at the University of Bristol, have published their findings in the journal Child: Care, Health and Development.

“There is no doubt that the reported prevalence of autistic spectrum disorders has increased spectacularly over the last 20 years,” said Ms Russell. “Medical consensus is that the increase is not a ‘real’ increase in cases but is the result of the diagnosis being made more often.

“But our examination of letters and phone calls received by scientists carrying out research into the environmental causes of autism shows that, in the opinion of many people in contact with autistic children, it is not diagnosis but true incidence which has increased, and these people think that we should be investigating what factors have led to this increase. They believe that it goes hand in hand with lifestyle changes in the late 20th and early 21st century, changes which are causing autistic spectrum disorders to occur more often.”

More than 40 different environmental factors were put forward as potential causes by correspondents, including foetal monitoring, vaccines, mobile phone radiation, and food additives.

Children with poor reading skills who underwent an intensive, six-month training program to improve their reading ability showed increased connectivity in a particular brain region, in addition to making significant gains in reading, according to a study funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The study was published in the Dec. 10, 2009, issue of Neuron.

“We have known that behavioral training can enhance brain function.” said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. “The exciting breakthrough here is detecting changes in brain connectivity with behavioral treatment. This finding with reading deficits suggests an exciting new approach to be tested in the treatment of mental disorders, which increasingly appear to be due to problems in specific brain circuits.”

For the study, Timothy Keller, Ph.D., and Marcel Just, Ph.D., both of Carnegie Mellon University, randomly assigned 35 poor readers ages 8, to an intensive, remedial reading program, and 12 to a control group that received normal classroom instruction. For comparison, the researchers also included 25 children of similar age who were rated as average or above-average readers by their teachers. The average readers also received only normal classroom instruction.

Four remedial reading programs were offered, but few differences in reading improvements were seen among them. As such, results for participants in these programs were evaluated as a group. All of the programs were given over a six month schooling period, for five days a week in 50-minute sessions (100 hours total), with three students per teacher. The focus of these programs was improving readers’ ability to decode unfamiliar words.

Using a technology called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), the researchers were able to measure structural properties of the children’s white matter, the insulation-clad fibers that provide efficient communication in the central nervous system. Specifically, DTI shows the movement of water molecules through white matter, reflecting the quality of white matter connections. The better the connection, the more the water molecules move in the same direction, providing a higher “bandwidth” for information transfer between brain regions.

At the outset of the study, poor readers showed lower quality white matter than average readers in a brain region called the anterior left centrum semiovale. Six months later, at the completion of the intensive training, the poor readers showed significant increases in the quality of this region. Children who did not receive the training did not show this increase, suggesting that the changes seen in the remedial training group were not due to natural maturation of the brain.

In an effort to further pinpoint the mechanism underlying this change, the researchers deduced that a process called myelination may be key. Myelin is akin to electrical insulation, allowing for more rapid and efficient communication between nerve cells in the brain. However, the directional association between brain changes and reading improvements remains unclear – whether intensive training brings about increased myelination that results in improved word decoding skills, or whether improved word decoding skills leads to changes in reading habits that result in greater myelination.

“Our findings support not only the positive effects of remediation and rehabilitation for reading disabilities, but may also lead to improved treatments for a range of developmental conditions related to brain connectivity, such as autism,” noted Just.

The National Autistic Society (NAS) has today criticised the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) report for ignoring the many thousands of people with autism, in their first assessment of the state of adult social care in England.

NAS director of communications and public affairs, Benet Middleton, said;

“We are extremely frustrated and disappointed that the performance of autism services has not been measured within this report.

With almost two thirds of adults with autism telling us they do not have enough support to meet their needs we know that thousands simply are not able to enjoy the same rights, freedoms or quality of life as the rest of society.

Assessments such as this are hugely important in driving an improvement in the quality of services and yet again people with autism have been overlooked.

The Government’s adult autism strategy, due next spring, presents one of the best opportunities we have ever had to tackle the routine inequality experienced by people with this serious, lifelong and disabling condition. The CQC must specifically report on autism services so we can see whether the strategy is working and crack down on those who are performing badly.”

The CQC is working in a number of areas to improve adult social care. The NAS looks forward to working together with the CQC to ensure that services for people with autism reach the standard that they need and deserve.

The CQC’s assessment of social care services for adults includes measuring their performance against seven outcomes set by the Government. These are improved health and emotional well being, improved quality of life, making a positive contribution, choice and control, freedom from discrimination, economic well being and personal dignity. It is evident from NAS research that for most adults with autism these remain a wish list.

- 63% do not have enough support to meet their needs
- 1 in 3 are experiencing serious mental health difficulties due to a lack of help
- 72% would like to spend more time in the company of other people
- Only 15% are in full time paid employment
- 56% have been bullied or harassed in adult life*

*Statistics from the NAS I Exist campaign based on a survey of 1,412 adults with autism in England published in 2008

- Autism (including Asperger syndrome) is a lifelong developmental disability. It is a spectrum condition occurring in varying degrees of severity. Over 500,000 people have autism in the UK today and over 2 million people are affected by the disability. It is characterised by a triad of impairments: difficulties forming social relationships, problems with verbal and non-verbal communication and the development of strong narrow obsessional interests.

Treatment that includes medication plus a structured training program for parents reduces serious behavioral problems in children with autism and related conditions, according to a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The study, which was part of the NIMH Research Units on Pediatric Psychopharmacology (RUPP) Autism Network, was published in the December 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Results from a previous RUPP study reported in 2002 showed that the antipsychotic medication risperidone (Risperdal) reduced such behavior problems as tantrums, aggression and self-injury in children with autism. However, most children’s symptoms returned when the medication was discontinued. Although effective, risperidone is associated with adverse effects such as weight gain, which can lead to metabolic changes, obesity and related health problems.

“Medication alone has been shown to help with some symptoms of autism, but its potential is limited,” said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel. “This study shows promise of a more effective treatment protocol that could improve life for children with autism and their families.”

In the study, the RUPP group tested the benefits of medication alone compared to medication plus a parent training program that actively involves parents in managing their children’s severely disruptive and noncompliant behavior. Parents were taught to modify their children’s behavior and learned to enhance their children’s daily living skills.

The 24-week, three-site trial included 124 children ages 4 to 13 with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) such as autism, Asperger’s or related disorders accompanied by tantrums, aggression and self-injury. The children were randomized to a combination of risperidone and parent training, or to risperidone only. Parents in combination therapy received an average of 11 sessions of training over the course of the study.

Although both groups improved over the six-month trial, the group receiving combination therapy showed greater reduction in behavioral problems like irritability, tantrums and impulsiveness compared to the group receiving medication only. The combination therapy group also ended the trial taking an average dose of 1.98 milligrams (mg) per day of risperidone, compared to 2.26 mg/day in the medication-only group – a 14-percent lower dose. However, children in both groups gained weight, indicating “a need to learn more about the metabolic consequences of medications like risperidone,” said the authors.

“The combination group was able to achieve its gains with a lower dose of medication. Plus, it appeared that the benefits of added behavioral treatment increased over time, a strong signal that actively including parents in the treatment of children with PDD could only benefit families, ” said lead author Michael Aman, Ph.D., of the Ohio State University.

“Future studies will evaluate whether the benefits of parent training endure over a long period of time,” concluded the authors. The investigators also plan to apply the parent training to younger children with PDD to prevent the evolution of serious behavioral problems. Future studies may also look for ways in which the parent training program can be used in schools and community clinics.

During its research into the application of neuroscience in business, a New Jersey based think tank, The Center for Modeling Optimal Outcomes®, LLC (The Center) made an inadvertent and amazing discovery.

The Center examined the neuroscientific dynamics of logic and emotion in decision making while researching neuroscience in business. They found unique corollary relationships between various brain chemicals (neurohormones, neurotransmitters, etc.). This apparent pattern led to a new path of research for the team outside of business. By looking at extensive scientific literature they discovered a cascade of hormones that emanate from the brain (hypothalamus). This same pattern of correlations was again apparent throughout the cascade. The group added a research biologist and started to test the pattern on genes (proteins). It remained consistent. The Center then called upon advisors from chemistry and physics to see if the pattern would apply in physical sciences.

To the amazement of the group, it became apparent that this pattern of corollary relationships could be applied to scientific processes for maintaining equilibrium (homeostatic relationships) throughout all of science; from subatomic particles to chemistry as well as between biological substances.

While the entire scientific community knows that homeostasis exists, this tacit knowledge has not been converted into a step-by-step, replicable model. The Center identified precisely such an explicit process.

Challenged by several of The Center’s advisors, members of the team decided to test the efficacy of the model to determine if the disruptions that cause autism could be identified.

After careful review of countless scientific studies, meeting with several renowned scientists to discuss their findings, and then applying the modeling process to numerous hypotheses, The Center’s Life Sciences group was able to formulate a scientifically verifiable model for the highly probable causal path of autism. Through the application of their model, it became apparent that autism is an outcome of several variables that, when the homeostatic relationship of each one is disrupted, a “perfect storm” scenario results in autism. The application of the model identified several of the variables that account for why boys have a 4 to 1 ratio of instances over girls as well as why not every boy is affected.

While the scientific community will have to validate The Center’s findings, the model for assessing homeostatic relationships indicates the “trigger” behind autism is an imbalance between a pair of amino acid neurotransmitters; glutamate and glycine.

According to The Center’s founder, William McFaul, a retired business person and not a member of the scientific community, “Because of its universal applicability, our Life Sciences group has already used the model as a tool to identify highly probable causal paths for several illnesses and disease entities. Autism was one of most difficult illnesses The Center had attempted to analyze. If it hadn’t been for so many parents insisting that vaccines were responsible for the condition, we might never have found the fact that the stabilizer in MMR and a few other vaccines is hydrolyzed gelatin; a substance that is approximately 21% glycine. It appears that, based on readily verifiable science, the use of that form of glycine triggers an imbalance between the amino acid neurotransmitters responsible for the absorption rate of certain classes of cells throughout the body. It is that wide-spread disruption that apparently results in the systemic problems that encompass the mind and the body characterized in today’s ‘classic’ autism.” He also added, “The use of our model indicates each of the disorders within Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is attributable to different disruptions in homeostasis. We look forward to sharing our findings relative to each disorder with the scientific community.”

According to Linda Oliver-Perrier, The Center’s spokesperson for their Life Sciences group, “The details of the disruptive process are somewhat complex and not conducive for explanation in a press release.

McFaul added, “The Center is seeking to affiliate with academic centers to provide its model for homeostasis to the scientific community for use as a tool to enable researchers to identify root causes of illnesses and disease entities. The Center is a think tank that creates models. We are not an operating company with the resources to educate individuals or organizations on the application of the models we create.