Autism Reversed in Mice at MIT Lab

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."

Comments

mice bred with autism?

[freg]

I'm curious, how do u get a bunch of mice who are autistic to test? Do they make them this way through breeding or do they check thousands of mice brains to find the one poor mouse with autism? As far as I know there's no way to give something autism.

Mental stability

[steveo777]

I've known a few autistic people growing up. Either through school, church, or friends. And I have to wonder. With all the support, drugs and training that goes into helping these people live 'normal' lives... what would happen if this gene therapy could cure adults? I'm well aware that this treatment is far from being used on any human, and I'm all for curing disease, so don't get me wrong. But will some one just wake up and feel 'free'? Or will it take time for them to get used to thinking 'normally'?

Maybe the answer is just as simple as 'cured'. But something tells me that it will never be that simple.

Re:Definitely

[sjames]

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.

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.

Alexander Shulgin develops and ingests...

[Safiire Arrowny]

Alexander Shulgin develops and ingests all of the psychoactive drugs that he has invented over the years, and has written two books on the subject; Phenethylamines I've known and loved ( PIHKAL ), and Tryptamines I've known and Loved (TIHKAL).

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 and arm, until he exhausted possibilities. All the while he and his wife ate, smoked, and injected various dosages of the substances and recorded the effects.

So he's basically invented or at least scientificallly documented the effects of a plethora of psychedelic drugs which 95% of the population has never heard of, and some that everyone has heard of.

Phenethylamines such as MDMA (ecstacy) MDA, MDE, 2-CB, 2-CT7, 2-CI, DOB (Probably the Brown Acid)...

Tryptamines such as DMT (super powerful psychedelic and neurotransmitter), Ibogaine (being used to cure drug addicts/alcoholics), LSD, Melatonin & Seratonin (neurotransmitters), 5-HO-DMT (psilocin in magic mushrooms)

So you see, people can just be allowed to test out drugs, especially the willing and chemists who know what they're doing, and have an idea of the effect the substance might have. Because of Shulgin doing that, it has made way for helping a lot of people with depression, post truamatic stress disorder, migrane headaches, addiction, etc, so it is all not just for the sake of tripping out.