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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."
The mice are still not talking... except for one.
Is a drug that turns people into mice and 99% of diseases will be a solved problem.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
Just being small and furry makes it hard for mice to socialize at parties. I can't even imagine how hard it would be for an autistic mouse.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
They are not sure what causes most forms of autism. The fragile X disease is something in it's own category.
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Although.... I've read that a disappointing percentage of drugs that work really well in mice don't in men.
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.
Also, gender chromosome related conditions are almost exclusive to men, whether the defect is on the X or the Y chromosome (the reason being that women have two X chromosomes, and a healthy one will usually mask the damaged one). So this might have some impact on treatment of certain types of male autism. Yes, that may be a narrow scope, but it's better than no scope at all.
Regards,
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*Art
Here's some information for those of you interested. I'm not an authority on this, except that I once did a 6 minute presentation for one of my biology classes.
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.
You are awash in a sea of fiercely stated opinions. Obvious exits are: 'File->Quit', 'Reply', and 'Page Down'.
We've been needing some of that down here in the South for a looong time...
but then in the morning you find yourself unable to count matches spilled on the floor, break the bank playing blackjack and eventually communicate with the objects around you. Beware, beware.
\u262D = \u5350
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.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Sadly, the project was cut short when the mice intentionally reversed the treatments, having found themselves unable to relate to their newly-lovestruck trainers.
I have always wondered how such a cure for (types of) autism would be handled when you factor in the push by some to recognize Autism as merely another frame of mind (so to speak). Similar to the mutants in X-Men III when faced with the cure, parents would be faced with allowing their child to grow up austistic (with all the advantages it conveys, and all of the disadvantages) or to give the child a "normal" life, however that may be defined and again, with all the benefits and drawbacks thereof.
Autism Acceptance
Maybe the answer is just as simple as 'cured'. But something tells me that it will never be that simple.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Excellent to hear, I know of a family that has an autistic set of twins, but I'm not sure if it is caused by the weak X syndrome, that only accounts for a certain amount of autism cases, regardless, I've seen what it's like to live with autistic children, it is not an easy life
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.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
"P.S. please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard."
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
"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."
Right. And what condition was his wife living with when he strangled her the night before again?
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I for one welcome our socially outgoing, well-adjusted, fuzzy minuscule overlords.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
"Flowers for Algernon", Daniel Keyes...
But, People magazine and Tom Cruise told me that vaccines cause autism! How can a vaccine cure autism?
Why is this false hope? A cure for one type of a disease generally leads to better understanding, and the ability to focus on other parts of the disease.
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.
Typically, (from what I've seen) those are people with Asperger's Syndrome. They can still function in society, even if they aren't very social, and the Asperger's gives them a level of focus and concentration on mundane things that the rest of us don't have, which can help in certain careers, like programming..
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.
One difficulty is that the psychology community keeps insisting that there is something called an "autism spectrum". Last time I did some research on this, I could not find a single piece of evidence to support a spectrum - in fact, the little evidence that existed indicated that there are several distinct conditions that have some symptoms in common.
People are different. The heavy rush of attempts to narrowly define normal and drug people into changing is disturbing. Take ADHD and other "diagnosis." At what percentage of showing up is something no longer legitimately a disorder, and rather is a type of person.
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.
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 purposeless and repetitive movements as markers for disease is frightenting. Children need those to develop muscles and co-ordination. Most adults would be better off not suppressing them as well.
Changing the structure of a person's mind is an even more frightening prospect. How do we know that the extra connections are not in some way useful? Could they be responsible for creativity and problem solving? This kind of treatment should be very carefully applied and only to those who are obviously bad off. A significant further ethical problem is one of long term efficacy and dependency explored in novels like Flowers for Algernon.
Society has already demonstrated it's willingness to abuse drugs in the name of conformity against hyperactivity. There is no doubt that too many children are medicated. The effects of those drugs are mild compared to this new class. It would be sad if society takes to altering people's brain structure they way it has taken to feeding kids uppers. The BBC's descriptions are right in line with that outcome.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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.
Is it too much to make sure that the cure not be worse than the disease?
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.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
It's easier than it looks.
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.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Isn't that, one hand fapping?
Ignore this signature. By order.
You've never been to a frat party, have you?
"Hey, the third matrix movie would have been good except for the plot,story, and acting." --AC
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
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I remember reading that penicillin is toxic to guinea pigs, so if that had been tested on them instead of mice, it would probably have never been released.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
The pointer keeps going to a corner.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
That is kind of like how the artificial sweetener Saccharin got pulled from the shelves over a decade ago after they found it caused cancer in mice. It turns out to get the equivalent dosage into humans as they were giving the lab mice, one would have to have eaten 15lbs of Saccharin every day. Once this came to light they redid the tests at normal levels with both mice and primates, it still ended up causing cancer in mice, but only in mice, it had no affect on the primates.
Unfortunately that's not been my experience, and in a very perverse way: being _perceived_ as great, does not equal actually having the skills.
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 idea that maybe things do balance out.
(And no, that wasn't a made up example. I've had no less than 4 people so far come to me with "Java's HashMap is broken! It replaced my item with another that has the same hash code!" *Sigh*)
And I'll tell you one reason why it balances out: there are only 24 hours a day for everyone. Every hour you spend on popularity games, is one less hour you spend on something else, like learning to do your job. There's, if you will, some consolation in being ostracized in that you have that time available for someone else. Maybe a piss-poor consolation, but that's how it works. You have a couple of extra hours to code something or read a book, because you didn't use that time on your social skills.
Of course, the world isn't neatly divided into 100% ace or 100% incompetent, so there are a lot of people who can be _decent_ at two or more things. But when you really move towards the high end on any skill, you have to dedicate a lot of time to it. Try to do it for several unrelated skills, and you just don't have enough hours in a day for that.
Also, given that people perform the best at what they like, it would take some kind of mutant that's equally uber-interested in everything to excel at such a broad mix.
Basically I just don't believe the myth of people who are great, curve-busting even, at a several unrelated skills. It might make for a good unattainable ideal or for superhero comics, but I've yet to even hear of anyone IRL who was actually a great programmer/mathematician/physicist/whatever _and_ the life of the party _and_ a great athlete _and_ god knows what else. Unless they have a time machine and can get 48 hours in a day, it's just not going to happen.
Which brings us back to the first paragraph: so some people _fake_ it instead. They use their social skills to compensate for the lack of other skills, and basically paint an image of themselves that just isn't true. They'll compensate for their actual programming skill by putting up a careful show and taking credit for someone else's work. They'll compensate for their at best sporadic and mediocre athletic interests by spinning fabulous tales about it. Etc.
Sure, that can get them actually more appreciated, but it's not actually being curve-busting in those skills.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Q. How many Disabled People's Rights activists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. It's not the light bulb that needs changing, it's the rest of Society's attitude that needs changing!
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
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.
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 their own agenda.
And let's talk about agendas. The first one presented in the parent's post was religion. This is going to sound harsh, but it needs to be said. The health of your children takes precedence over your own delusions of how you think your god of choice defines moral. Let's say that instead of treating autism, we're talking about taking your son up on a mountaintop and killing him. If Bob the plumber does that and the police find out about it, when he tells them, "God is testing my faith," are they supposed to just say, "Oh, freedom of religion, we can't interfere. By all means, kill your son, Bob."? That's bullshit, and Abraham, who was presented with this situation in the Bible, should have told his petty god to go to hell; he's not going to kill his son.
Likewise, if you're going to deny treatment of a medical condition to your child because of religion, you should have that child taken away from you because while you're free to practice your religion to your hearts content when it comes to living your life how you want, you're obviously not capable of making responsible, informed decisions for someone else's health. (Sorry Jehovah's Witnesses, but this applies to you when it comes to blood transfusions.) Believe it or not, I highly respect religion, but not when it's causing direct harm to others.
The other situation presented was the "my child is special and I wouldn't want them any other way" agenda. Notice the wording of that sentence: I wouldn't want them any other way. Notice that a parent who says that isn't talking about what's best for the child; they're talking about what they want. There is a small contingent of people out there who are what I call "sufferers." You know the type, whenever you ask them, "How's it going?" instead of answering "not too bad" like any reasonable person does, they proceed to tell you about their back ache, their car repairs, their plumbing problems, their stupid brother who got arrested, and so on. They're the people who, if they won the lottery, would complain about how much taxes they're having to pay.
A subset of these people actually get off on being in a constant state of suffering. They love the attention that it brings to them from people who don't know them well. They just love that feeling when someone tells them, "Oh my god, that's awful! You poor thing!" Having a disabled child and not treating them because of this is about as scummy as it gets. If they want to wallow in their misery, I say, fine. But if they want to impose that misery on someone who can't make the decision for himself or herself, that's where I draw the line and say that a baseball bat is appropriate.
Now, speaking of the misery of autism, I'm not saying that everyone who has autism is miserable. Some of them are pretty much normal, and the cure may in fact be worse than the condition. If parents weigh the risks and benefits and come to the decision that it's not worth it, I'm fine with that, more power to them. But in many cases, autism is not just a matter of a child being different, it's a matter of a child not being able to function in society.
Is there a gray area? Sure, there almost always is. Should parents get leeway when they're operating within that gray area? You bet. But 1) if a low-risk high-success treatment becomes available, and 2) parents make the decision whether or not to have their child undergo it because of religion or what they want instead of the long-term health and well-being of the child, it's time for the baseball bat.
I don't think I said anywhere I do not want to give people the freedom over their own bodies. Of course they have the right to refuse treatment if they so choose; but I also can have my own point of view regarding whether such a choice is a rational one, and whether pushing such a POV that outright demonizes treatment through organizations I'm involved in is something I think we should be doing!
Objectively speaking, I'd rather not be disabled. It is not such a crucial part of who I am that I couldn't leave it behind given the chance. I can't force people to feel otherwise, but I can offer them the chance to be honest about it.
I'd rather not "wait for a cure" but mobilize resources for finding one. And in the meantime while we don't have it, we can certainly seek to spend our time on more immediate-term projects that improve quality of life... and yes, society's attitudes are a big part of it. Accessibility, for example, enables so much and helps one to help oneself. My problem with the social-model style semantic trickery is that it a) turns a "simple and contained" and possibly resolvable medical issue into one that is rather oppressively all around the individual, pretty much everywhere and b) it makes communication with outsiders so much more difficult because of the impenetrable jargon and conceptualizing...
You're sounding a lot like some of the activist friends I have who start blaming me for wanting power over them when I'm saying that they might just consider the fact that they are not bound by honor or a desire to seem like some disabled heroes (a bit of a cult within the disabled activist community). They just actively miss the point, like you do.
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.