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Mice Cured of Autism

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thu Feb 08, 2007 08:07 PM
from the of-mice-and-men dept.
noahisaac writes "My brother just sent me an article he posted for the Rett Syndrome Research Foundation about a cure for Rett Syndrome, a form of autism. According to the article, researchers successfully re-introduced a fully functional version of the MECP2 gene into mice that had been born with damaged MECP2 genes. Contrary to their expectations, the mice improved. In the article's words, 'restoration of fully functional MECP2 over a four week period eradicated tremors and normalized breathing, mobility and gait in mice that had previously been fully symptomatic and, in some cases, only days away from death.' The ramifications for people suffering from Rett Syndrome are obvious, but mutations of the MECP2 gene are also believed to be the cause of 'classic' autism, and a number of other neurological disorders."
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  • it's not a game... (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 (568564) on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:09PM (#17942666) Homepage
    The ramifications for people suffering from Rett Syndrome are obvious, but mutations of the MECP2 gene are also believed to be the cause of 'classic' autism, and a number of other neurological disorders."

    So they're saying this will cure people of World of Warcraft?
  • Algernon (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:09PM (#17942668)
    please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard
  • Slashdot is doomed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Harmonious Botch (921977) on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:11PM (#17942680) Homepage Journal
    If there is a cure for autism - and it's close cousin, aspergers - then most of us on slashdot will get a life.
      • Re:Slashdot is doomed (Score:5, Funny)

        by QuickFox (311231) on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:55PM (#17943132)

        Most people on Slashdot do not have Apserger's.
        Where's your proof? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Slashdot is doomed (Score:4, Funny)

          by jacobw (975909) <slashdot@org.yankeefog@com> on Friday February 09 2007, @04:12AM (#17945836) Homepage

          Most people on Slashdot do not have Apserger's.
          Where's your proof? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
          If he were trying to prove that most people do not have Asperger's Syndrome, he might require extraordinary evidence. But trying to prove that we don't have Apserger's Syndrome is much easier. Admittedly, I've never heard of Apserger's before, but I have to assume it involves being a semicircular or polygonal termination or recess in a building, usually vaulted and used especially at the end of a choir in a church. I'm pretty sure if I were the vaulted polygonal termination of a church, I wouldn't be able to type well enough to use Slashdot.
          [ Parent ]
      • Re: (Score:2)

        Most people on Slashdot do not have Apserger's.
        Indeed we don't have Apserger's, we have Asperger's.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        speaking as someone who is diagnosed with it, though i do agree that most here don't have it, it is not trivial and is not a result of "burying one's none in a computer".

        much of your normal social interaction isn't quite learned in the typical sense. it i
      • Re: (Score:2)

        Hmmm... people have offered to help me in the past when I've done somethign like slipped and fell down. Are you sure this isn't more about _you_?
          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            You drastically misunderstand what is meant by "lack of empathy." Most people have some degree of empathy. Maybe they won't care about someone they don't know, but when it comes down to their friends and family they care how they are feeling. They care
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            A bus stop is probably not the best place to gather evidence about the kindness of strangers. I don't know about where you live, but here bus stops tend to gather a rather odd collection of characters, to the point that most bus passengers develop a sort
  • by andy314159pi (787550) on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:11PM (#17942682) Journal
    How much will the treatment cost Rainman?
    "About a hundred dollars."
  • In other news (Score:5, Funny)

    by rowlingj (118872) on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:12PM (#17942688)
    In other news, a nerdy engineer turns into a superb personnel manager after the genes are corrected. The only problem is the manager now has no way of understanding the code and schematics previously thought to be "fully documented".
  • Runtime gene patching! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jhantin (252660) on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:13PM (#17942698) Homepage
    So they spliced a stop codon into the middle of the relevant gene to disable it, then delivered an enzyme all the way to cell nuclei (!) to delete what they spliced in. The next step then it seems is then to find or engineer a proper enzyme to patch a naturally occurring gene defect -- they've basically proven that runtime patching of the genome works. Nice.
    • Re:Runtime gene patching! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by DrKyle (818035) on Friday February 09 2007, @01:01AM (#17944986)
      All they have proven is that turning the gene back on can alleviate the disease. This is no closer to a cure than any other single gene disease that could be fixed by putting a good copy in. Not only that but most autism has nothing to do with this mutation, most autistics are male and only females get Rett syndrome. The title and summary are the biggest load of non-biologists trying to write about biology I've read in months.
      [ Parent ]
  • Misleading title (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Wuhao (471511) * <[jonas] [at] [accero.net]> on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:14PM (#17942710)
    The rats never had autism -- they had Rett syndrome, which was cured. Why does the poster seem to feel that the results here can be generalized to a similar disorder, when it's not even well understood why it even worked for the first?
  • Good job! Nice to hear of such groundbreaking discoveries! This made my day!
  • Girls only (Score:3, Informative)

    by Marxist Hacker 42 (638312) * <seebert@aracnet.com> on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:16PM (#17942736) Homepage Journal
    Men, apparently, need not apply- these specific behaviors are female symptoms mostly. I wonder, though- is this the cause of the difference between heavy metal poisoning causing autism and genetics causing autism?

    From TFA: * Rett Syndrome (RTT) is a severe childhood neurological disorder, diagnosed almost exclusively in girls. The most physically disabling of the autism spectrum disorders, RTT strikes at random, affecting an estimated 1 in every 10,000 females.
    * First symptoms usually appear between 6 to 18 months of age. Development slows or begins to regress. Children at this stage may exhibit the social withdrawal often seen in autism, or cry inconsolably for months as previously acquired language and motor skills disappear. In classic RTT, this regression is accompanied by the onset of constant, compulsive hand wringing and the loss of all functional hand use. The progression of symptoms varies across the RTT spectrum. Many children become wheelchair bound; those who walk display an abnormal stiff-legged gait.
    * As the disease progresses, abnormal voluntary and involuntary movements reflect increasing neurological deficits. The children suffer apraxia, the inability to organize voluntary movement. Parkinson-like tremors are common, as are disordered breathing patterns and problems with chewing and swallowing. Some children require feeding tubes or supplementary oxygen. Abnormal brain wave patterns are present in RTT; a percentage of the children experience seizures.
    * The only autism spectrum disorder with a known genetic cause, RTT results from mutations in the gene MECP2. This gene was first discovered by Adrian Bird, Ph.D in 1990. MECP2 regulates the expression of other genes by turning them off at the appropriate time.
    * Mutations in MECP2 were identified as the cause of RTT in 1999 in the lab of Huda Zoghbi, M.D. MECP2 mutations are now being seen in some cases of childhood schizophrenia, classic autism and learning disabilities.
    • Re:Girls only (Score:4, Informative)

      by samkass (174571) on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:49PM (#17943060) Homepage Journal
      is this the cause of the difference between heavy metal poisoning causing autism and genetics causing autism

      It's not been shown that heavy metal poisoning causes autism. Poisoning with lead or mercury can have neurological symptoms that are similar to autism, but removing the heavy metal and flushing it from the body causes rapid improvement in the poisoning patients, while autism has no cure. The mistaken belief that they're the same thing led a lot of parents to stop immunizing, despite every single reproducible study showing no link between the mercury-based compound that used to be found in such immunizations and autism. To wit, autism continues to gradually become more common despite the fact that mercury has now been completely removed from childhood vaccines.

      The only statistically significant environmental link found so far to the onset of true autism cases that I've seen was a study that showed that the rollout of cable television appeared to be correlated to a moderate rise in autism in the neighborhoods and time periods of the rollout during the 80's.
      [ Parent ]
  • Watch your words (Score:5, Informative)

    by Raindance (680694) * <johnsonmx@@@gmail...com> on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:17PM (#17942746) Homepage Journal
    MECP2 as "the cause" of autism is overblown-- scientists have isolated several genetic areas that are somewhat probable contributors toward developing autism, but
    1. Autism is definitely caused by the contributions of many genes;
    2. There are various ways autism presents itself- presumably due to varying genetic contributions. Rett Syndrome is (in my understanding) an atypically (genetically) simple form of autism.
  • The implications are obvious (Score:5, Funny)

    by Y-Crate (540566) on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:17PM (#17942754)
    Self-diagnosed Aspergers sufferers will suddenly find themselves without any excuse for their behavior.
  • Mice cured... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dunbal (464142) on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:30PM (#17942862)
    Obligatory Douglas Adams:

          And far away in some distant dimension, some pan-dimensional hyperintelligent beings have suddenly become extremely anti-social, developed a limp, and are currently wondering if this search for the ultimate question is worth all the bother...
  • Jim Sinclair (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:31PM (#17942872)
    From: http://www.autistics.org/library/dontmourn.html [autistics.org]

    Autism isn't something a person has, or a "shell" that a person is trapped inside. There's no normal child hidden behind the autism. Autism is a way of being. It is pervasive; it colors every experience, every sensation, perception, thought, emotion, and encounter, every aspect of existence. It is not possible to separate the autism from the person--and if it were possible, the person you'd have left would not be the same person you started with.

    This is important, so take a moment to consider it: Autism is a way of being. It is not possible to separate the person from the autism.

    Therefore, when parents say,

            "I wish my child did not have autism,"

    what they're really saying is,

            "I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead."

    Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      Damn, I wish my kid had been born alive. I know it would be a completely different kid, but, you know, it might have been better for him. // no kids, alive or otherwise.. just making a point
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Finally, someone with a reasonable perspective! Thank you for your post. For all of you who don't know, autism--as far as we can tell-- involves the inability of the prefrontal cortex to integrate perception properly. This leads to difficulty in languag
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      That's the most absurd and soppy thing I've read all day.

      It may be true for high functioning autistic children, but it's cruel to put guilt trips on parents who have autistic kids who can't speak or be potty-trained for wishing their beloved children were
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I think to state such a thing as Therefore, when parents say, "I wish my child did not have autism," what they're really saying is, "I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead."
    • Re:Jim Sinclair (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bri2000 (931484) on Friday February 09 2007, @07:22AM (#17946620)
      I understand your point. However as someone who's life has been ruined by Asperger's Syndrome I have to say there are other perspectives.

      I was seriously bullied and discriminated against at school (by teachers and pupils) and all through university and subsequent life, I have literally no friends or anyone to talk to outside of immediate family members, no chance of ever being in a loving relationship as the only women prepared to have anything to do with me turn out to be menatally ill - seriously, of the two women who've slept with me one turned out to be a schizophrenic and the other had Munchausen syndrome - and a career which has stalled due not to a lack of ability but rather to my inability to connect with people and the fact everyone at work finds me just so damn weird. As a result of these and other problems connected with my AS I now, at the age of 35, suffer from chronic intractable depression. I was, in fact, formally diagnosed with AS after being referred to a consultant psychiatrist for depression last year.

      I fully acknowledge that if I did not have AS I would not be the same individual that I am. That does not bother me. So far as I'm concerned AS has caused me to have a life that is not really worth living and I would have been quite happy (in so far as that concept has meaning when discussing an emotional reaction to non-existence) for someone else, with a slightly different set of genes to me who would have been better at life and enjoyed it a little more, to have taken my place (my therapist hates this line of argument btw - we have huge rows about whether people who say they are happy with AS really believe what they say or are just fooling themselves in a desperate attempt to bolster their self esteem and playing the "noble, stoic cripple" role that society prefers its handicapped members to adopt). If there was a cure I would jump at it.

      I also have to say that, although it's a moot point (see above), if I did ever find a woman willing to breed with me, having had the life I've had and having gone through what I've gone through I would seek genetic counselling and take whatever steps were available to prevent any child of mine from being born with AS (or any other form of autism). I know that the question of whether a bad existence is better than non-existence is extremely difficult from a theoretical perspective but, so far as I'm concerned, if you bring child into the world who you know will have a hellish existence and you could have prevented it, you've done wrong.

      [ Parent ]
        • Re:Jim Sinclair (Score:4, Interesting)

          by f1055man (951955) on Thursday February 08 2007, @09:53PM (#17943610)
          Before I edited my post I had mentioned that a "cure for autism" is ethically murky. My point is simply that the response to this news should not be unfettered enthusiasm. There are similar ethical debates within the deaf community. Frankly, I think that the problem is not that scientists provide the option of altering oneself, but that these advances in medicine and technology are often couched in paternalism. It's "we can fix you; make you normal" rather than "here's an option". Some day normal will mean having biotech augmentations of some sort. An exciting option, but if someone tells me that they can fix my product of evolution body I might be a little pissed. Try telling a flat chested woman that those can be "fixed" and see what happens. Many autistics have a similar view.
          [ Parent ]
            • OK, I understand how being autistic can give people neurological advantages, but deafness? If they're deaf from birth and the brain never developed to understand sound, then I can see wanting to be cautious, but if that setback can be fixed, how is the pe
  • wait a minute!!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by neo8750 (566137) <neo8750@NOspAM.comcast.net> on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:36PM (#17942924)
    "Rett Syndrome was first recognized by Andreas Rett in 1966 and is a neurological disorder affecting primarily females. Autopsies on the brains of these individuals indicate a pathology different than autism; however, children afflicted with Rett Syndrome often exhibit autistic-like behaviors, such as repetitive hand movements, prolonged toe walking, body rocking, and sleep problems."

    Here [autism.org] is the source of this info.

  • damn mice! (Score:5, Funny)

    by tomstdenis (446163) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `sinedtsmot'> on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:38PM (#17942938) Homepage
    They keep curing the mice!!! what about us humans? ... :-) [yes this is a joke].
  • But adults may still be out of luck (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Michael Woodhams (112247) on Thursday February 08 2007, @08:43PM (#17942990) Journal
    They've reversed (something like) Rett Syndrome in mice, showing that the nerve malfunctioning is reversable. In humans, however, missing vital developmental milestones is not reversable. E.g. normally we acquire grammar by age three, but if for some reason we don't acquire it before the age of about 10, we never will (or only very poorly.) So even if this treatment transfers to humans, it is unlikely to be a complete miracle cure for adult Rett Syndrome (or autistic) people.

    Here's [newscientist.com] another article about it.

  • Congratulations to the all the Universities & Research Institutions & all their staff involved.

    The U.S. & Canada have terrific engineers and bio-researchers, but we need even more, yet we are not increasing students in these arenas, we are seei
  • What then? (Score:2, Insightful)

    Okay, hypothetically, you cure someone from a form of autism. What then? There's still a social aspect to behavior, one that having whatever syndrome on the autistic spectrum is sure to leave a hole in. Who knows, on human patients who have grown up wit
  • Classic autism aside (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mshurpik (198339) on Thursday February 08 2007, @09:38PM (#17943478)
    >mutations of the MECP2 gene are also believed to be the cause of 'classic' autism, and a number of other neurological disorders.

    Classic autism aside, I think a lot of people are suffering from a sociological autism that will *not* be improved by gene therapy. What is autism exactly, is there a definition? I can imagine one, but I'm not sure everyone is on the same page with this relatively new disease.

    In other words, I don't think gene therapy will get my dad to shop at designer clothing stores, get his car tuned, or hire contractors to improve his house.
  • Yawn... (Score:4, Funny)

    by StikyPad (445176) on Thursday February 08 2007, @09:54PM (#17943634) Homepage
    Wake me up when they've cured altruism.

    Oh wait...
  • I just wanted to say. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Short Circuit (52384) * <mikemol@gmail.com> on Thursday February 08 2007, @11:15PM (#17944298) Homepage Journal
    I just wanted to say three things:

    • I am autistic.
    • I have personality quirks I normally keep under control.
    • I do not want my personality "fixed."
  • by Zhe Mappel (607548) on Friday February 09 2007, @06:21AM (#17946384)
    ...to play the mouse in the film version.
  • by B5_geek (638928) on Friday February 09 2007, @07:41AM (#17946708)
    I have read a fascinating book called "Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon that deals with this subject matter.

    Amazon clip:

      Corporate life in early 21st-century America is even more ruthless than it was at the turn of the millennium. Lou Arrendale, well compensated for his remarkable pattern-recognition skills, enjoys his job and expects never to lose it. But he has a new boss, a man who thinks Lou and the others in his building are a liability. Lou and his coworkers are autistic. And the new boss is going to fire Lou and all his coworkers--unless they agree to undergo an experimental new procedure to "cure" them.

    The short version: Autistics all have gifts that we just don't recognize, what if they don't want to be 'cured'

  • Hallelujah (Score:3, Insightful)

    by petrus4 (213815) on Friday February 09 2007, @10:06AM (#17948046) Homepage Journal
    I'm one of presumably the minority of people with autism (I was diagnosed at 16 with NLD [nlda.org] after the usual traumatic experience with the neurotypical education system) who'd love to be cured myself, if such a thing became available. Autism is a genetic aberration and a curse, for the most part, and needs to be seen as such. Being autistic is neither glamorous or enjoyable, and the only people who try and see it as a blessing are those who wish to gain some extra privelege over and above the normal population, as members of yet another minority. The neurotypical population sees us as the proverbial sewer-dwelling mutants for a reason; it's because we genuinely are.

    I've also written numerous times that I believe that the overwhelming predominance of autism in the Linux community is the single main thing holding Linux as an operating system back. Autistics who use Linux (Stallman being primary among them) believe that their philosophical view is morally superior, when I feel that in reality it (particularly the degree of repetitive consistency of the message over time) is simply a result of their neurological disability.

    The "five freedoms" aren't things Linux users care about so strongly because they're people with an inherently more developed moral sense than most people, or because of the inherent moral value of the ideas; they're things that Linux users care about to that degree because autism causes rote, uncontrollable fixations with certain concepts or areas of interest, sometimes on a long term basis. In some kids with Asperger's it's trains or a collection of toilet brushes. In the case of Stallman and the Debian developers, it's a perverted definition of software freedom. The fixation is with an abstract concept rather than physical objects, but that's about the only difference.
    • Re: (Score:2)

      Yup, that will work. Then 1 in 3 children will die from smallpox and the rest from other diseases. There won't be anyone left to catch Autism...
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        I'm pretty sure the rise in diagnosis of autism correlates with a decline in the number of women smoking while pregnant and a rise in women having children later in life, so we should stop getting immunized AND start smoking more AND have more premarital s