autism treatment

Can parasitic worms or hot baths treat autism?

Some participants in the trial showed improvement in certain symptoms, including a decrease in repetitive behaviors.

Although the remedies may sound unconventional, doctors are currently testing whether infecting people with worms or giving them hot baths could reduce some symptoms of autism.

In small, early clinical trials, the unusual treatments — which involve using parasitic worm eggs to trigger anti-inflammatory signals in the gut, or raising the body temperature to mimic the effects of an infection — lessened the repetitive behaviors and other symptoms of the disorders; even so, scientists say the effects must be replicated before the treatments can be considered safe and effective.

“All three studies are interesting and merit further investigation,” said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven & Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York in New Hyde Park, who was not involved in the studies. “To what extent they can lead to clinical treatment is unclear,” Adesman said. [5 Wacky Things That Are Good for Your Health]

In addition, parents should note that trying such treatments at home, without the guidance of a medical specialist, could be dangerous.

Inflammation and autism
Autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, is a group of developmental brain disorders associated with impairments in social skills, communication problems and repetitive behaviors. The causes of the disorder are not fully understood, but are thought to be complex and varied, and current treatments address only the symptoms.

One theory of what causes autism holds that during pregnancy, activation of the mother’s immune system results in inflammation in the baby, which leads to developmental and behavioral abnormalities. Modern human society, some say, has become hyper-sanitized, ridding humans of exposure to common microbes, and so when exposed to even benign “bugs” their immune systems go on the offense. One of the results is inflammation. Some scientists believe germ-free living may explain the higher incidence of inflammatory disorders, such as asthma and allergies, in developed countries.

Previous research has investigated treatment using parasitic worm eggs, known as Trichura suis ova (TSO), to treat autoimmune diseases, such as Crohn’s disease, finding the treatment to be effective in small studies. Anecdotal reports suggest that TSO infection may reduce certain symptoms of autism by reducing underlying inflammation. TSO is a common pig parasite, but is generally considered harmless in humans.

Dr. Eric Hollander, a clinical psychiatrist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, decided to test the treatment in people with autism. In the trial, five high-functioning young adults with the condition were randomly assigned to drink a dose of worm eggs mixed in saltwater, while another five high-functioning participants with autism were given a placebo for three months. Then, after a one-month period of no treatment, each group received the opposite drink for three months.

While receiving the worm treatment, the participants showed a decrease in the repetitive behaviors that are common among people with autism, according to preliminary results from five of the patients that Hollander presented on Dec. 12 at a meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (the other five patients are still doing the trial). However, during the worm treatment, the patients did not show improvement in social or communication skills.

More evidence needed
The Food and Drug Administration has not approved the worm treatment for autism. Scientists will need to demonstrate it’s effective in larger trials first, Hollander said. “Clearly more work needs to be done, but this offers a new avenue for treatments,” he told LiveScience.

Worms aren’t the only type of therapy for autism Hollander is exploring. Another theory suggests high levels of stress on the mother during pregnancy can cause autism by leading to a spike in the stress hormone cortisol, which interferes with the development of a specific signaling pathway in the baby’s brain. [7 Ways Pregnant Women Affect Their Babies]

Changes in this signaling pathway might explain why about a third of children with autism experience improvement in their symptoms when they have a fever, according to reports from parents.

In another study Hollander presented today, 15 children with autism, some of whom had a history of improvement due to fever and some of whom didn’t, soaked in a hot tub at 102 degrees Fahrenheit (38.9 Celsius) or 98 F (37 C) for 30 minutes.

The children who had a history of improvement in their autism symptoms after fever showed some improvement in social skills after spending time in the 102-degree hot tub. Exactly why the heat may help remains unclear, but the temperature might affect certain enzymes that control whether genes are turned on or off in the brain, Hollander said.

Adesman called the study “clever” and “intriguing,” but noted that it was unclear whether children who don’t see their autism symptoms improve from fever also benefit from the hot tub therapy.

Elaine Hsiao, a researcher at Caltech who studies autism and immunity said the research “lends support for immune-based therapies for ASD.”

Growing research shows that microbes with the human body modulate brain function and behavior, Hsiao said. It will be important for researchers to figure out how the worm treatment leads to beneficial effects on behavior, whether it’s through changing the immune system, the digestive tract, or other indirect effects, she told LiveScience.

Hollander also presented a third study today, which involved giving 34 high-functioning adults with autism a drug that blocks reuptake of the brain chemical norepinephrine, which may be activating the same brain circuits as fever does. These adults showed improvements in attention and executive function, Hollander reported, though he called for these findings to be replicated as well.

Source: Mother Nature Network

A baby’s gaze may signal autism, study finds

When and how long a baby looks at other people’s eyes offers the earliest behavioral sign to date that a child is likely to develop autism, scientists are reporting.

In a study published Wednesday, researchers using eye-tracking technology found that children who were found to have autism at age 3 looked less at people’s eyes when they were babies than children who did not develop autism.

But contrary to what the researchers expected, the difference was not apparent at birth. It emerged in the next few months, and autism experts said that might suggest a window during which the progression toward autism can be halted or slowed.

The study, published online in the journal Nature, found that infants who later developed autism began spending less time looking at people’s eyes between 2 and 6 months of age and paid less attention to eyes as they grew older. By contrast, babies who did not develop autism looked increasingly at people’s eyes until about 9 months old, and then kept their attention to eyes fairly constant into toddlerhood.

“This paper is a major leap forward,” said Dr. Lonnie Zwaigenbaum, a pediatrician and autism researcher at the University of Alberta who was not involved in the study. “Documenting that there’s a developmental difference between 2 and 6 months is a major, major finding.”

The authors, Warren R. Jones and Ami Klin, both of the Marcus Autism Center and Emory University, also found that babies who showed the steepest decline in looking at people’s eyes over time developed the most severe autism.

“Kids whose eye fixation falls off most rapidly are the ones who later on are the most socially disabled and show the most symptoms,” said Jones, director of research at the autism center.

“These are the earliest known signs of social disability, and they are associated with outcome and with symptom severity. Our ultimate goal is to translate this discovery into a tool for early identification” of children with autism.

The eye-tracking differences are not something parents and pediatricians would be able to perceive without the technology and expertise of an autism clinic, Jones said. “We don’t want to create concern in parents that if a child isn’t looking them in the eyes all the time, it’s a problem,” he said. “It’s not. Children are looking all over the place.”

Autism therapies have not yet been developed for young babies, but there are efforts to adapt intensive behavioral therapy for use with children as young as 12 months, Jones said.

Diagnoses of autism have increased, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from one child in 150 in 2002 to one in 88 in 2008. The reasons are unclear, although some factors could be greater awareness of the disorder and a growing number of older fathers.

Jones and Klin, who directs the autism center, studied two groups of babies. One group was at high risk for autism, with a 20 times greater likelihood of developing it because they had siblings with the disorder. The other group was at low risk, with no relatives with autism.

The researchers assessed 110 children, from 2 months to 2 years of age, 10 times while watching videos of friendly women acting like playful caregivers. Eye-tracking technology traced when the babies looked at the women’s eyes, mouths and bodies, as well as toys or other objects in the background. At age 3, the children were evaluated for autism. Ultimately, researchers used data from 36 boys, 11 of whom developed autism. (They excluded data from girls, because only two developed autism.)

While the number of children studied was small – and the researchers are now studying more children – experts not involved in the study said the results were significant because of the careful and repeated measurements that were not just snapshots, but showed change over time.

“It’s well done and very important,” said Dr. Geraldine Dawson, director of the Center for Autism Diagnosis and Treatment at Duke University. She said it was notable that “early on these babies look quite normal; this really gives us a clue to brain development.”

She said a possible explanation was that, early in life, activities like looking at faces are essentially reflexes “controlled by lower cortical regions of the brain that are likely intact” in children with autism. But “as the brain develops, babies begin to use these behaviors in a more intentional way. They can look at what they want to look at. We think that these higher cortical regions are the ones that are not working the same” as in typical children.

The researchers found that children who developed autism paid somewhat more attention to mouths and sustained attention to bodies past the age when typical children became less interested. Even more noticeable was that children who developed autism looked more at objects after the first year, while typical children’s interest in objects declined.

“We’re measuring what babies see, but more importantly we’re measuring what they don’t see,” Jones said.

Source: NDTV