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Doctors Reverse With Drugs Autism-Linked Fragile X Syndrome In Mice

Posted by timothy on from the kmart-definitely-sucks dept.

An anonymous reader writes "New research by a team of Bangalore-based scientists has given hope to those with emotional problems caused by the inheritance of a fragile X chromosome. The researchers, for the first time in the world, mapped defective connections between nerve cells in the emotional hub of the brain of mice who had Fragile X Syndrome. The research has just been published in the online edition of the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." Besides the mapping of these nerves, though, "The NCBS team has shown that even the long-term ravages of the condition could be reversed with medication in mice." Fragile X syndrome is associated with autism, though the conditions do not map directly to each other.

4 of 63 comments (clear)

  1. Where There's a Will There's a Way by Saeed+al-Sahaf · · Score: 2, Informative

    There has to be some way to tie an Indian Call Center Joke into this...

    --
    "Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
  2. Misleading headline. Fragile X != Autism by Trixter · · Score: 3, Informative

    The symptoms are similar but they are only tangentially related. The headline is incredibly misleading by suggesting a drug has been produced that can reverse autism, which is of course not true.

  3. Related Slashdot post from June 27, 2007 by PatPending · · Score: 3, Informative

    From June 27, 2007:

    Autism Reversed in Mice at MIT Lab

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    What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
  4. Doctor Reversed Nothing by DynaSoar · · Score: 4, Informative

    They supposedly mapped the connections involved.

    They previously determined what enzyme caused the damage and found something to inhibit it.

    They *assert* that they could possibly reverse the damage using this inhibiting enzyme. COULD.

    Inhibiting damage can prevent. You cannot inhibit damage already done. Inhibition and reversal are not the same. Nor are the two syndromes involved.

    Times of India ranks up there with Pravda when it comes to truthful accuracy, especially when it comes to home ground science. The "for the first time" gets read as though nobody had ever done this mapping before. It could as easily mean it was the first time they did it. It has been done before.

    The asserted reversal has also been done before. Not by them or by their New York friends, but at MIT.

    --
    "I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B