Autism Blog - Genetics « Left Brain/Right Brain

Archive for the ‘Genetics’ Category

Spontaneous Gene Glitches Linked to Autism Risk with Older Dads

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

Below is a press release from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the U.S.. on recently published studies on autism risk. These are the studies mentioned by NIMH Director and IACC chair Thomas Insel in his article “The New Genetics of Autism – Why Environment Matters“. Spontaneous Gene Glitches Linked to Autism Risk with [...]

Posted in Autism, Genetics, Science | 6 Comments »

Thomas Insel: The New Genetics of Autism – Why Environment Matters

Wednesday, April 4th, 2012

Thomas Insel is the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the chair of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) in the U.S.. His article can be found here (The New Genetics of Autism – Why Environment Matters) and I have quoted it in full bellow. (As a government publication I feel [...]

Posted in Autism, Genetics, IACC, NIH, Science | 9 Comments »

Lack of association between autism and four heavy metal regulatory genes

Saturday, July 30th, 2011

One question that has been discussed for some time is the hypothesized role of mercury as a potential cause of autism. The basic idea is that administrative prevalences of autism went up coincident with increases in mercury exposure from vaccines. Plus, it was asserted that autism symptoms are similar to the symptoms of mercury poisoning [...]

Posted in Autism, Genetics, Mercury, Science, Vaccines | 4 Comments »

Genetic explanation for why autism (apparently) affects more males than females

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

Firstly we should start by saying there is a strand to the debate that strongly indicates that autism in females is heavily underdiagnosed. That said, interesting new research emerges from George Washington University. The team basically looked at a gene implicated in autism called retinoic acid-related orphan receptor-alpha, or RORA (brains of autistic people make [...]

Posted in Autism, Genetics, Science | 7 Comments »