

Scientists say they have new evidence that autism begins in the womb - rb2e
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26750786

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dispense
Patches of Disorganization in the Neocortex of Children with Autism

[http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1307491](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1307491)

doi://10.1056/NEJMoa1307491

Background

Autism involves early brain overgrowth and dysfunction, which is most strongly
evident in the prefrontal cortex. As assessed on pathological analysis, an
excess of neurons in the prefrontal cortex among children with autism signals
a disturbance in prenatal development and may be concomitant with abnormal
cell type and laminar development. Methods

To systematically examine neocortical architecture during the early years
after the onset of autism, we used RNA in situ hybridization with a panel of
layer- and cell-type–specific molecular markers to phenotype cortical
microstructure. We assayed markers for neurons and glia, along with genes that
have been implicated in the risk of autism, in prefrontal, temporal, and
occipital neocortical tissue from postmortem samples obtained from children
with autism and unaffected children between the ages of 2 and 15 years.
Results

We observed focal patches of abnormal laminar cytoarchitecture and cortical
disorganization of neurons, but not glia, in prefrontal and temporal cortical
tissue from 10 of 11 children with autism and from 1 of 11 unaffected
children. We observed heterogeneity between cases with respect to cell types
that were most abnormal in the patches and the layers that were most affected
by the pathological features. No cortical layer was uniformly spared, with the
clearest signs of abnormal expression in layers 4 and 5. Three-dimensional
reconstruction of layer markers confirmed the focal geometry and size of
patches. Conclusions

In this small, explorative study, we found focal disruption of cortical
laminar architecture in the cortexes of a majority of young children with
autism. Our data support a probable dysregulation of layer formation and
layer-specific neuronal differentiation at prenatal developmental stages.
(Funded by the Simons Foundation and others.)

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neolefty
Thank you for posting that! I am not exposed to current research on autism,
but I want to know what is happening.

Does that mean that autism can be an evolutionary symptom of trying to balance
maximum intelligence (which I assume requires, in layman's terms, a ton of
neurons) with robust brain organization and overall brain health?

And do we know if any other species experience autism?

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thaumasiotes
Coming soon:

new evidence that prostate cancer begins in the womb.

new evidence that schizophrenia begins in the womb.

new evidence that Alzheimer's begins in the womb.

~~~
zxcdw
Is this supposedly amusing or are you just venting off because of something,
with no intent of contributing to any form of civilized discussion?

~~~
thaumasiotes
It's not really interesting that a condition which is with you from birth
might begin in the womb. The others I listed are also known to be... phrased
conservatively... strongly influenced by something in the womb, but at least
they all exhibit late-life onset and could conceivably begin at some later
point.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Given the amount of coverage bullshit theories about autism and it's causes
got a few years ago don't you think it's worth promoting valid research about
it (particularly where it directly contradicts the bullshit)?

~~~
thaumasiotes
Well, for one thing, it doesn't. Assuming the antivaxxers take this research
to heart, which there is no particular reason to expect (how have they viewed
other research?), watch for the message to become "save your grandchildren
from autism by not vaccinating your children".

On the general question of "if one bad idea gets press, should we devote a
bunch of extra attention to refuting it?"...

Daryl Bem managed to conduct some studies showing a "statistically
significant" effect of ESP. He got those published in a respectable journal,
which felt duty-bound to print them because Bem had followed all the
formalities of the scientific method, and That Is The Process Of Science.

Obviously, ESP is not real, and this attracted several replication efforts.
When they duly failed to replicate, they couldn't get published. Are you
arguing that after publishing Bem's paper, the journal should have wasted
further space publishing the inevitable refutations? Their position was that a
paper demonstrating that ESP is not real has no scientific value, and they're
completely correct about that (we already know!). So they opted to publish
papers that might have something more worthwhile to say.

neolefty points out that the article's content has little to do with the
title, and that's fair criticism of my complaint. But the title is so
incredibly inane that it immediately sold me on the idea that reading the
article would be nothing but a waste of time.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
I'd like to say I don't care what anti-vaxxers think but sadly I have to as
their children don't deserve to be lumbered with their irresponsible idiocy
and the overall impact on herd immunity means that they're causing significant
problems even outside their families.

There are two things here:

1) What's covered in the scientific literature

2) What's reported in the mainstream press

In the former you're absolutely right, in the later I don't think so (and the
original link is the the BBC, not the NEJM).

Most people don't have the skills, time or subscriptions to go and view
medical papers. When Wakefield got coverage for his bullshit for most people
there was no "this is obviously wrong" because they had no evidence to suggest
Wakefield was wrong. As a result his position became commonly and widely
accepted.

When that happens I think the papers should spend time covering the
refutations and trying to inform the public when real research - even if dull
or obvious research - shows something which will slowly help the public adjust
their incorrect viewpoint.

I'd love to think that the MMR/Autism thing has run it's course and we
shouldn't have to do this any more (and hell, with even Jenny McCarthy backing
down some we are getting there) but sadly I think we still have some way to
go.

And in that vein, long live the promotion of tedious (but factual) research.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I mostly agree with what you're saying here; I'm not sure about this one:

> When Wakefield got coverage for his bullshit for most people there was no
> "this is obviously wrong" because they had no evidence to suggest Wakefield
> was wrong. _As a result_ his position became commonly and widely accepted.

My gut says that isn't responsible for the acceptance. Antivaccine beliefs
crop up from time to time, apparently independently, all across the world.
They are generally cultural phenomena; e.g. the polio vaccine was rejected as
being part of a Western conspiracy to do nefarious things to the people
getting it. I'd be more inclined to blame the fact that getting injections
makes some people pretty uncomfortable.

I'm not actually sure how widely accepted antivaxxers are; they're certainly
vocal about their (deserved) persecution by saner people. As you mention,
they're a problem more because even small concentrated groups of antivaxxers
can cause big problems to everyone around them than because there are so many;
UFO junkies aren't exactly accepted by the mainstream, but there are a lot of
them in an absolute numbers sense _and they 're harmless_.

I can't tell you how shocked I was when my sister's best friend, a graduate of
UC Berkeley, came into our house and started telling us about the evils of
wheat. Among other preposterous claims, apparently the wheat we eat today has
been genetically engineered to be nefariously addictive, and has all kinds of
ill effects on your bodily health. I was able to trace most of her ideas back
to this guy, the natural culmination of the gluten-free food fad:

[http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/](http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/)

but, as is always the case, her ideas were garbled, and attributed even more
evil to wheat, compared to what is presented in that awful, scaremongering
book.

You can't stop completely crazy ideas from springing up in the most unlikely
places, and skills, time, and access are much less protective than you might
hope.

When Brazil had its antivax scare at the turn of the 20th century, the
government showed up in full military force and vaccinated everyone anyway.
That's the sensible way to handle antivaxx beliefs.

This has been a long, rambling comment. Let me try to sum up:

\- Antivaxxers aren't doing it because they're convinced by any research.
They're doing it as a weird cultural phenomenon, like many, many other
crackpot quasireligious groups (UFOs / astrology / cryptozoology / 9/11
truthers / vegans / what have you). As with other quasireligious believers,
they're not going to be convinced by argument or evidence. What makes them
different is not that people weren't around to defend reality when they
formed, it's that their beliefs and practices are quite harmful to everyone
around them.

\- Given the long and distinguished history of antivax movements, it doesn't
make sense to me to blame this one on Andrew Wakefield and a failure to
publish counterpapers in a timely manner. It makes more sense to view it as
another antivax movement, fueled by whatever keeps causing and sustaining
them, where the trigger is basically just a coincidence.

edit-addendum:

> Most people don't have the skills [...] to go and view medical papers

This is no less true now than it was in 1998. For all of those people, they
have no evidence _now_ to suggest that Wakefield was wrong. The publication of
research discrediting him further and further can never help; by assumption,
those people cannot understand medical papers. They don't understand
Wakefield's paper either (which is what I'm getting at when I say "Antivaxxers
aren't doing it because they're convinced by any research").

