Autism Reversed in Mice at MIT Lab 303
Posted
by
ScuttleMonkey
from the only-one-man-would-dare-give-me-the-fragile-x dept.
from the only-one-man-would-dare-give-me-the-fragile-x dept.
ClayTapes writes "It seems that scientists at MIT have been able to reverse the effects of autism and some forms of mental retardation in mice caused by fragile X chromosomes. They do so by targeting an enzyme that changes the structure of connections between brain cells. The treatment actually repairs these structural abnormalities which suggests that it may be possible to reverse the effects in children who already show symptoms."
Amazingly (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Amazingly (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Amazingly (Score:5, Funny)
definitely...
definitely two words...
Re:Amazingly (Score:4, Funny)
Its not about Bush .. its about porn. (Score:2, Funny)
"Prior to treatment they showed signs of hyperactivity, purposeless and repetitive movements."
Sounds more like someone surfing the net for pr0n, accompanied by the sound of one hand clapping ...
Re:Its not about Bush .. its about porn. (Score:4, Funny)
Isn't that, one hand fapping?
Re:Amazingly (Score:5, Informative)
Definitely (Score:2)
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Although.... I've read that a disappointing percentage of drugs that work really well in mice don't in men.
Re:Definitely (Score:5, Interesting)
What I really wonder about is the converse. How many highly useful (in humans) drugs have been abandoned at an early stage because they had no effect on mice.
It's interesting that LSD was thought to have little more than a very mild stimulant effect (and had been abandoned in favor of more promising lysergic acid compounds) until Hoffman got some of it on him and took the first acid trip. Apparently either it's not all that apparent when a mouse is tripping or mice don't trip.
He was looking for a better medication to stop uterine bleeding.
See this [flashback.se].
I wonder what other "uninteresting" substances have been ignored because they don't happen to have any effect on humans in microgram doses and don't effect mice in any dosage.
Unfortunatly, there's no much of a solution to that since we can't have people randomly ingesting chemical experiments just to see.
Re:Definitely (Score:4, Funny)
You've never been to a frat party, have you?
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Alexander Shulgin develops and ingests... (Score:3, Interesting)
He was for a long time given immunity from the law in order to develop and test the substances he made basically by taking either a base phenethylamine or tryptamine molecule and then attaching every possible configuration of atoms around say, a phen's benzine ring
How to tell when a mouse is tripping (Score:3, Funny)
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Not so Definitely (Score:3, Insightful)
This is definitely a good thing. Definitely. Definitely.
I may be bucking the general consensus, but a lot of people would not consider this a good thing.
First, there are the religious types, who dissapprove because "that's how God made them."
Then there are the parents (religious or not) who say "my child is special and I wouldn't want them any other way." You'd be surprised how often this sentiment gets expressed.
Not everyone believes that (and I don't mean it in a negative sense) is a laudible goal for science. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Not so Definitely (Score:4, Insightful)
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I wouldn't say that "a lot of people" feel this way.
Also, I won't beat around the bush: These people are stupid idiots that ought to be arrested for severe child abuse. Anyone who thinks this for any reason is a bad and extraordinarily self
Re:Not so Definitely (Score:5, Insightful)
I just think you need to cut the parents who make those statements some slack. They are dealing with a very difficult situation.
Re:Not so Definitely (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had long discussions about this with a certain otherwise bright girl with CP who is nevertheless an unyielding hippie and who claims that seriously, she wouldn't want to be cured even if a cure were available, as it would alter who she is. And this is a person who is in a wheelchair. Considering that I am a wheelchair-using cripple too, that kind of a position is hard to comprehend. Make my bones not break easily and give me some 50cm more height and my life would be much easier, and I don't think I would lose anything I particularly love about my life!
Of course, the whole medical/social model of disability discussion which unfortunately seems to preoccupy so much of the minds involved in the disability movement is just semantic bullshit that seeks to shift the "blame" for the issue away from the person, and make us feel less like medical objects that need to be conformant to some ideal we don't fit. IMO, while there is limited sense in arguing that people have the right to be who they are, mostly this seems to just expose insecurities in disabled thought... there is a need to be so defensive of our disability, that we end up actually hurting our own cause by saying that the problem doesn't really even exist, and that attempts to make things better on a personal, "individual-altering" basis are "wrong"! Worse yet, producing sociology papers on this topic is such huge intellectual masturbation that I am absolutely certain the time and effort could be better used trying to find actual, pragmatic solutions to issues...
I guess some people are just so traumatized by the almost imagined "blame" and medical "objectification" that they just aren't able to see that it would be OK to accept a cure... at least to me to be able to say that is liberating. My disability is not "my identity"; it's very much a mere medical issue, nothing else. And as such, it is hopefully treatable in the future, if not in my case, but in some future person's case. (But let's not go here to the fact that for my diagnosis the "cure" tends to be abortion these days, and I'm around because fetal diagnostics weren't there in 1979...)
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Objectively speaking, I'd rather not be disabled. It is not such a crucial part of who I am that I couldn't leave
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My brother has two sons, one very mildly autistic, one not so mildly. I have not sent him a link for this article for two reasons: (1) he and his wife probably have all kinds of well-meaning friends who have e-mailed this link, and (2) hope is painful, and the limited amount of hope that this offers is comes nowhere near the pain that would ensue.
The studies right now are only showing results for a particular kind of autism. This does not cover all of the different types that exist. This
Disease vs. how people are (Score:5, Insightful)
As a parent, I'm extremely nervous when we let people define "normal" and call everyone outside of normal a "disorder" that needs treatment. When you start with treating genetic code, there is a fine difference between treating a disease (a good thing), and fundamentally changing a child because they aren't how you want.
I notice that there is a lot of straw man stereotyping of people "religious types two posts ago" and from you "stupid idiots that ought to be arrested for severe child abuse." I've also noticed the people who feel other parents should be arrested for doing things that they don't approve of generally don't have children.
There was a time that people were allowed to be different. They might be mocked, ostracized, or made fun of, but being different and having different values shouldn't be criminal. There is no "one right way" to raise children.
The human gene pool is pretty shallow as is, this rush to eugenically change things isn't necessarily good for the species.
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The comparison to ADHD is false. In many cases I have seen, "hyperactivity" is simply the result of having a smart, energetic kid in a classroom where an authoritarian teacher refuses to let them excel.
I believe that my experiences as a person who still struggles for social success, but, perhaps as a consequence of this, does not struggle in other areas gives me some room to comment on this. As I am - that is, I can be sociable but with effort - I would not trade my advantages for greater sociability and
Re:Disease vs. how people are (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently I was quite hyperactive when I was a kid. Then my parents cut out sweets and pop and I became a lot more manageable without any setback to my intellectual or physical development. To this day, most frozen prepared foods or desserts taste too sweet to me. They get prepared with lots of sugars and MSG because they are cheaper than real spices for making something taste less bland. I also can't stand the chemical after-taste from most "sugar-free" drinks and foods; that's probably not a bad thing.
Some people wonder why the western world has an epidemic of diabetic and obese people, but it's not a big mystery to me. Some form of sugar is in most things you buy pre-packaged: frozen dinners, hamburger patties, spaghetti sauce, most other sauces, salad dressings, etc. Go back to basics and cook with spices and simple ingredients. If you only have time to by pre-packaged meals, refuse to buy any with sugars in it (sucrose, fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, etc.). Wean your kids off sugar and, in the long run, they'll thank you, though your dentist probably won't.
Re:Not so Definitely (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm also confident you won't be the last one. But I'm worried you (and your peers) may be overly judging things too rashly.
I am autistic, and I don't consider my condition to be a handicap. Autism makes some parts of my life more difficult, but it makes other parts of my life easier. I imagine it's like being taller than average: some things are easier (reaching the top shelf) and some things are harder (fitting into a small car). It's hard to say whether, from a utilitarian perspective, one way is overall "better" than the other. It'd be an ideal world if it happened to balanced out perfectly so that someone with my degree of autism had exactly the same potential for joy and suffering as a neurotypical person, however I suspect the probability of that is low. I don't want you to discount the idea that perhaps my life is easier than a neurotypical person, and that my degree of autism may actually be an advantage. It's certainly a possibility.
Furthermore, the parents may be working under the (I think) reasonable assumption that there are risks to every medical treatment. There's a strong belief that autism is hereditary, and so if I have a child, I'm open to the possibility that may be born autistic. Given that my life turned out pretty good, I'd probably favour not having medical procedures done on a child, all other things being equal.
To clarify, I'm fully willing to take into account my doctor's advice and opinions. If the doctor told me "Your child is extremely autistic, and will probably require 24/7 supervision and will never learn to speak. I strongly recommend we go through with the treatment, as the risks are very minor.", then I'd probably sign whatever forms were necessary and let the autism get "cured". On the other hand, if the doctor says "Your child has some signs of high functioning autism. If untreated, he'll probably end up within the same spectrum range as you. We can apply a treatment, but there are some very minor risks. It's your call, do you want to proceed?" I'd probably respond with "No. I enjoyed my life. I think he will too."
"Colour blind" can be rewarding too (Score:5, Insightful)
If Asperger's is like being colour blind, well, I can say that sometimes I'm happy to not see those colours.
1. I hear or read expressions every day to the effect of "he had an honest face", "he looked sincere" or "he had a poker face" or "said it with a straight face", or the fateful step forward from there: "I'd know if he was lying to me." For me that just doesn't exist, but I'll choose to believe that the people saying that stuff actually know what they're talking about. Or maybe it's wishful thinking and make belief for them too, I wouldn't know.
Either way, then I see people falling for the most unbelievable lies, either from the local sociopath or from the the nice IBM/MS/whatever salesman, because, hey, he was "looking honest" and saying that crap "with a straight face" and generally giving the "right signals." It's typically stuff you'd think noone with half a brain would actually believe, if they only engaged their logic for a second. But they believe it anyway, because someone deliberately fed them the false body language signals.
I've known and been around people whose main skill and way to make a living was, basically, giving whatever body language signals they wanted to give. Saying the most mind-boggling lies "with a straight face" and "looking honest", "looking hurt" when they wanted to look hurt, or even getting tears in their eyes on demand. (That last one I can actually tell.) And people swallowed it all hook, line and sinker, because, hey, their instincts tell them to trust that nice person now, to try to cheer them up the next moment, and god knows what else.
Me, I don't even see that kind of stuff, I have to trust other people when they assure me that the nice salesman definitely looked sincere when he sold them that crap. My natural instinct would be to just take that series of statements for what it _is_, and see if it actually produces the conclusion I'm fed. Instead of getting stuck on taking dumb shortcuts like "it must be true, because he looks honest" or "naah, it would be mean of me to hurt him more by dissecting what he just said."
In effect, I'm naturally shielded from what, as far as I can extrapolate, seems to be a very common form of deception. I'm "colour-blind" (metaphorically speaking) in a world where it seems rather common for some people to use colours for deception, deceit, fraud. I can be thankful for that.
2. It seems a rather common trend for Asperger's Syndrome people to be, abover all else, logical, fascinated by one or more narrow scientific domains, and prone to hyper-focus when working on that domain.
It's, if you will, like distributing stat points or traits in a D&D-type game. You take some points from here, and put them in that other stat. Or like when you roll a mage instead of a warrior, you lose HP and armour class, but gain spells.
Ok, maybe not the best analogy, but you surely understand what I mean: it's not just a handicap, we got something else in return. We're the guys who were _fascinated_ by how a radio works, or by assembly language, while the other kids were playing popularity games. We're the guys who (assuming we found a willing listener) were talking about the differences between Haskel and Prolog, while the other teenagers were debating whether Jane or Amy is more fashionable. We're the guys who go into a hyper-focus trance and produce a big block of code, or the proof of a theorem, while the rest of the gang plods through changing an if here and a sign there and see if it worked. Etc.
Admittedly, it's not for everyone, and I'm not saying everyone should be like that. If your goal is to get into higher management, for example, honestly, you won't have much of a chance as an AS, and chances are you wouldn't enjoy that kind of a job anyway. On the other hand, for
Re:"Colour blind" can be rewarding too (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a factor to take into consideration that a large number of people cannot be very deceptive without giving some outward signs that most attentive people can pick up on. It's a piece of evidence that you are discarding as worthless on the basis of the fact that the evidence isn't, in and of itself, conclusive.
I will agree that people often overemphasize that particular piece of evidence.
My disclosure: I stopped speaking at all for a spell between ages 3 and 4 (1987-1988), and so as different doctors tried to figure me out I was repeatedly diagnosed with autism and then undiagnosed when they ran some test and decided I wasn't autistic after all.
Re:"Colour blind" can be rewarding too (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure the zero-sum idea is a pleasant consolation, but it's not true. If it's like AD&D, it's more like barebones first edition 3d6 character creation: some people really do happen to roll all 16-18's, and some people don't have their weaknesses balanced by much of anything.
Most of the totally curve-busting smart people that I have known (from top-tier research labs, grad schools, and from the very upper ranks of undergraduate populations at large universities) have also been quite socially adept or at least, no more than a bit shy and awkward. A number are also quite gifted artistically or athletically, too.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Odd. That's the opposite of my experience. Every "curve busting" person that I've ever known has also been socially awkward. I have never met a math or physics professor
Not that simple, sadly (Score:3, Interesting)
So, yes, a lot of people can get a promotion or pass for the great guru, based on being socially adept at deceiving others. That much I'll admit. But when you actually get to see the code they produce, or that they spent a week debugging Java's HashMap because they don't actually have any fucking clue about how a hash table or a linked list work, you start to get the
Re:Not so Definitely (Score:5, Insightful)
And don't even think of telling me I'm way off base. Being close minded, like you obviously are, is a curable handicap as well and I know a number of people that would be happy to beat your parents for allowing you to continue being this way.
Really it's people like you that reinforce my belief that evolution is dead since we keep "curing" every mutation that comes along.
Re:Not so Definitely (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, I won't beat around the bush: These people are stupid idiots that ought to be arrested for severe child abuse. Anyone who thinks this for any reason is a bad and extraordinarily selfish parent and should immediately have their children taken away from them. Anyone who would deliberately impose a curable handicap on their children should be beaten, and I'd be happy to volunteer to be the one who brings the baseball bat and takes the first few swings. I sure as hell don't think I'd be the last one, either.
On forcing cures (Score:5, Insightful)
The fella who invented the lobotomy got a Nobel Prize. Lobotomies were very effective at controlling emotions that were otherwise hard to control--this is before the modern psych drug was invented. But it cut a few nerves critical to normal social functioning in the process.
There is also the paradox of anti-depressants spurring suicidal thoughts, and the problem of older anti-depressants depressing every variety of thought. Those drugs were and are very nearly forced on people when the conditions they treat are caught, but I'm not certain that it's always to the best for the patients.
This fragile-X cure also messes with nerves fairly directly. The BBC suggests that this shouldn't make any variants of the lobotomy problem--we're talking redardation-autism, not Aspergerish autism--but some of us do want to be sure the side-effects aren't worse than the disease.
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Clarification (for those who don't get it) (Score:3, Interesting)
Just to clarify, because obviously some of you don't get it: I have nothing against autistic people. Some of them are quite cool people. If they make an informed consent to refuse treatment for their condition, good for them, and I support them 100%. But we're not talking about an adult making an informed decision about the state of their own health here. We're talking about someone making a decision about the state of someone else's health based not on what's in the best interests of that person, but t
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Now th
Choices (Score:4, Informative)
Of course Autism is a spectral disorder, but people with full-blown autism probably aren't normally capable of even understanding the choice. That said, my little sister with Asperger's would definitely reverse it in a heartbeat if there were a way to do it right now. She has had a tough time finding a niche where she can apply herself for her career, and she has always struggled socially, which has made her feel miserable.
As far as parents making the decision, though... From what I've seen and read, when autism starts to make itself known, the kids withdraw into themselves, as if their personality gets locked away inside their minds, and you're watching it go until it's all but gone. In addressing one of the posts above that speculated that many religious wacko parents wouldn't want to reverse that, I can assure you, any parent would want to unlock their child from whatever dark room they are trapped in. Just to be able to hug your kid and be hugged back, or to have a normal conversation, would be a tremendously wonderful thing after watcing your kid disappear into his own mind.
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Now all we need (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Now all we need (Score:5, Funny)
"Stop giving away our plans, Pinky, or I shall have to hurt you."
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Are you kidding? Mice die from EVERYTHING! Don't you ever read medical research?
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-matthew
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I understand the concept you were conveying. But the bigger picture is, if we can pull this idea or concept into humans
great (Score:4, Funny)
Re:great (Score:5, Funny)
Re:great (Score:5, Funny)
This is good news (Score:2)
News That Matters.
Misleading (Score:5, Informative)
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Not misleading, but narrow scope (Score:5, Informative)
Regards,
--
*Art
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gender chromosome related conditions are almost exclusive to men
It would be better put to say that chromosome related conditions are predominantly apparent in males. There are Fragile X females, but they tend to have symptoms to a much lesser degree unless they had both a fragile X father and mother. The interesting thing is that this process that reduces the symptoms of Fragile X syndrome will actually make Dual Fragile X females more likely as Fragile X males will receive more opportunities to reproduces, having more societally acceptable traits.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
People with Fragile X Syndrome have more dendritic spines than usual, but each is longer and thinner, and transmits weaker electric signals.
The only similarity is that fragile X syndrome has autism like symptoms. A bladder infection may give you the same symptoms as prostate cancer, but are entirely different.
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But autistic mice don't *have* social habits... (Score:3, Interesting)
People with severe autism have no social life, for various reasons.
Mice with active cases of "severe autism" likely also have no social life. Keep them in cages with other mice, and it should be easy to tell which mice couldn't care less that there are other mice in their cages.
If an experimental treatment suddenly makes an "autistic" mouse notice and care that there are other mice in its cage, then it is treating the autism.
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Autism is a syndrome, which can be caused by a number of underlying conditions, most of which remain elusive thus far. Fragile-X is just too easy and crude of a model.
mice bred with autism? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:mice bred with autism? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:mice bred with autism? (Score:4, Informative)
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Now go and get my mouse a doll house bedroom set, light the candles, put on some soft jazz and load up the water bottle with covasie!
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I keep trying to breed with a trait positive female mouse, but after a few drinks all she wants to do is run around on her wheel. What am I doing wrong?
Daniel Benoit (Score:2, Informative)
While it would be irresponsible to speculate whether the boy's (unconfirmed) condition had any relation to the horrible acts... I'll do it anyway, because I'll be damned if the media's speculation that Chris had "roid rage" was any less irresponsible or harmful.
If Chris Benoit took his son's life because he felt it was more merciful than allowing
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Right. And what condition was his wife living with when he strangled her the night before again?
Further information (Score:5, Informative)
Some researchers believe that autism causes it's havoc by interfering with the brains ability to prune existing connections between neurons. This is also pointed at as the reason that many autistic children appear normal for the first X months of development...they have to build up enough neurons linked to everything else before they lose the ability to function.
For the same reason, many believe that treatments that restore the brains ability to prune those connections could restore normal function to people with autism, even if they are already adults.
Joyous times, indeed.
Re:Further information (Score:5, Funny)
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extrovert... "normal"... introvert... geek... slashdot reader
2009: "Autism cured, Slashdot readership plummets."
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Thwart Creativity? Potential Abuse? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's very good that non functional people can be brought into consciousness but the BBC description of the symptoms, cause and cure show potential for massive abuse:
Using pur
Wait.. (Score:2)
Finally (Score:2, Funny)
Oh yeah it's just a pill (Score:4, Funny)
Reference (Score:3, Informative)
One thing to note is that this isn't a drug; it's a dominant negative transgene, so you're not going to popping pills for this any time soon.
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A tragic end (Score:2, Funny)
Always the mice, lucky bastards (Score:2)
No vaccinations? (Score:2)
Autism Acceptance Movement? (Score:3, Insightful)
Autism Acceptance [wikipedia.org]
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It's a shame there is still a stigma attached to helping people with mental problems....
BTW I have a son diagnosed with autism and it is heart breaking seeing him struggle with things that are so easy for others.
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with all the advantages it conveys, and all of the disadvantages
I'm just curious, but to what are you referring to as "advantages?" Autism runs in my family and I'm hard pressed to see how it has given them any advantages in life. I have 7 cousins and one uncle with varying degrees of autism. My uncle is an autistic savant[1] with an incredible command of military history and equipment, but the mental maturity of a 6 year old. He has an incredible capability, but his disability leaves him unable to put it to any practical use. As for my cousins, their level of d
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More d
Mental stability (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe the answer is just as simple as 'cured'. But something tells me that it will never be that simple.
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It came about that she couldn't find a suitable car with a stick, so she finally got one with an automatic transmission. First comment about the new car:
"I can't believe I did all that extra work for all those years! this is SO much nicer!"
I suspect a great many disabled people would react similarly, should they "lose" their disability, even if the
Algernon (Score:4, Funny)
The Speed of Dark (Score:2, Insightful)
"If I had not been what I am, what would I have been?" wonders Lou Arrendale, the autistic hero of Moon's compelling exploration of the concept of "normalcy" and what might happen when medical science attains the knowledge to "cure" adult autism. Arrendale narrates most of this book in a poignant earnestness that verges on the philosophical and showcases Moon's gift for characterization. The occasional third-person interjections from supporting characters are almost intrusive, although they supply needed data regarding subplots. At 35, Arrendale is a bioinformatics specialist who has a gift for pattern analysis and an ability to function well in both "normal" and "autistic" worlds. When the pharmaceutical company he works for recommends that all the autistic employees on staff undergo an experimental procedure that will basically alter their brains, his neatly ordered world shatters. All his life he has been taught "act normal, and you will be normal enough"-something that has enabled him to survive, but as he struggles to decide what to do, the violent behavior of a "normal friend" puts him in danger and rocks his faith in the normal world. He struggles to decide whether the treatment will help or destroy his sense of self. Is autism a disease or just another way of being? He is haunted by the "speed of dark" as he proceeds with his mesmerizing quest for self-"Not knowing arrives before knowing; the future arrives before the present. From this moment, past and future are the same in different directions, but I am going that way and not this way.... When I get there, the speed of light and the speed of dark will be the same." His decision will touch even the most jaded "normal."
Karma (Score:2)
Obligatory... (Score:3, Funny)
Dupe? (Score:3, Interesting)
Feedback loop (Score:2, Funny)
But, People magazine and Tom Cruise told me that vaccines cause autism! How can a vaccine cure autism?
Autism, Autism, or Autism? (Score:3, Interesting)
Hail Science! (Score:2)
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You could accuse them of giving false hope if they were recommending feeding autistic children 7 gallons of cod liver oil, or some other snake oil cure. But an advance in real science should inspire real hope that we can completely solve this puzzle some day.