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Something I noticed - there really is a strong genetic link

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DVCal
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19 Jan 2015, 6:02 pm

Campin_Cat wrote:
DVCal wrote:
Actually a lot of the resent research is showing the opposite with environment perhaps playing the biggest role of all.

Environment being conditions that occur during pregnancy.


I don't know that I agree with that. What are the chances that the environment in which my biological mother carried / gave birth to me, was the SAME environment in which my grandfather was carried / given birth to? He was born around 1887----and, I suspect he was as Aspie (although, undiagnosed).


Easy there may be a hereditary condition that causes women in the family to produce an environment for the fetus that is conducive to autism. In fact research is showing this type of factor could be on the major causes of autism.



Janissy
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19 Jan 2015, 6:42 pm

DVCal wrote:
Campin_Cat wrote:
DVCal wrote:
Actually a lot of the resent research is showing the opposite with environment perhaps playing the biggest role of all.

Environment being conditions that occur during pregnancy.


I don't know that I agree with that. What are the chances that the environment in which my biological mother carried / gave birth to me, was the SAME environment in which my grandfather was carried / given birth to? He was born around 1887----and, I suspect he was as Aspie (although, undiagnosed).


Easy there may be a hereditary condition that causes women in the family to produce an environment for the fetus that is conducive to autism. In fact research is showing this type of factor could be on the major causes of autism.


There is speculation that this hereditary condition is autoimmune disease (of the mother).

http://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/news/2013/large-study-links-autism-to-autoimmune-disease-in-mothers

Quote:
Mothers with anti-brain antibodies are also more likely to have autoimmune diseases, especially rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, compared with mothers who don’t have these antibodies.

Finally, the team screened a group of 363 women with rheumatoid arthritis for autism-linked antibodies. They found that 13.5 percent of these women have anti-brain antibodies, similar to the prevalence among mothers of children with autism and much higher than that of controls.

That’s a rather puzzling finding, Patterson says. “If they’re just as likely to be found in rheumatoid arthritis women, that means they’re not especially specific to autism,” he says.

But a link between rheumatoid arthritis and autism isn’t unheard of, Diamond says. In a separate series of experiments, she has found that antibodies that cause kidney damage in women with lupus also cause cognitive impairment in mice exposed to the antibodies in utero4.


I have rheumatoid arthritis and an autistic daughter. I am not personally autistic although I feel BAP (broader autism phenotype) and my mom seems pretty BAP too. Maybe the autoimmune disease is a trigger in BAP pregnant women. Or maybe in pregnant women with no autistic traits whatsoever (since BAP is a colloquial not a clinical term I just can't tell from this research). When the research came out, it did seem like a plausible link.



qFox
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19 Jan 2015, 7:56 pm

DVCal wrote:
We know this to be false as we have identified some environmental factors that are known to cause autism, which are independent of genetics. That isn't to say there aren't genetic causes of autism, because we also know some genetic causes.

Autism is likely a group of conditions, causes by many many different things, with similar expressions. There may be hundreds if not thousands of unique causes of autism that range from genetic to environmental.


They cause 'autistic like behaviour', not autism since autism is a structural difference in the brain. Someone who displays behaviour in line with autism may or may not actually have autism. An example of a condition that can cause autism like behaviour is creatine deficiency syndrome.

Research to external environmental factors have so far been inconclusive, other than hints which are in line with my reasoning. It is thought that certain people may have a genetic disposition towards autism which may be intensified such that it can be classified as a ASD due to some environmental factors.

Quote:
In a second study led by NIEHS-funded scientists from the University of Southern California, researchers found that children possessing a specific genetic risk factor appear more likely to develop ASD when exposed to high levels of air pollution during gestation. This finding helps explain why some previous studies that focused exclusively on genetic variation and ASD development have proven inconclusive.


Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24240654

Genetic predisposition is still required for autism, as it is a structural brain disorder. It has been found that there are consistent and vast differences in the brain of those with autism and those without. Long or short term environmental factors may increase or decrease severity of the phenotype.

Quote:
Analysis of network properties revealed differences specific to TSC and ASD, and these differences were very consistent across subgroups. In TSC, both with and without a concurrent diagnosis of ASD, mean coherence, global efficiency, and clustering coefficient were decreased and the average path length was increased. These findings indicate an altered network topology. In ASD, both with and without a concurrent diagnosis of TSC, decreased long- over short-range coherence and markedly increased network resilience were found.


Source: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/54/abstract



DVCal
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19 Jan 2015, 9:25 pm

qFox wrote:
DVCal wrote:
We know this to be false as we have identified some environmental factors that are known to cause autism, which are independent of genetics. That isn't to say there aren't genetic causes of autism, because we also know some genetic causes.

Autism is likely a group of conditions, causes by many many different things, with similar expressions. There may be hundreds if not thousands of unique causes of autism that range from genetic to environmental.


They cause 'autistic like behaviour', not autism since autism is a structural difference in the brain. Someone who displays behaviour in line with autism may or may not actually have autism. An example of a condition that can cause autism like behaviour is creatine deficiency syndrome.

Research to external environmental factors have so far been inconclusive, other than hints which are in line with my reasoning. It is thought that certain people may have a genetic disposition towards autism which may be intensified such that it can be classified as a ASD due to some environmental factors.

Quote:
In a second study led by NIEHS-funded scientists from the University of Southern California, researchers found that children possessing a specific genetic risk factor appear more likely to develop ASD when exposed to high levels of air pollution during gestation. This finding helps explain why some previous studies that focused exclusively on genetic variation and ASD development have proven inconclusive.


Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24240654

Genetic predisposition is still required for autism, as it is a structural brain disorder. It has been found that there are consistent and vast differences in the brain of those with autism and those without. Long or short term environmental factors may increase or decrease severity of the phenotype.

Quote:
Analysis of network properties revealed differences specific to TSC and ASD, and these differences were very consistent across subgroups. In TSC, both with and without a concurrent diagnosis of ASD, mean coherence, global efficiency, and clustering coefficient were decreased and the average path length was increased. These findings indicate an altered network topology. In ASD, both with and without a concurrent diagnosis of TSC, decreased long- over short-range coherence and markedly increased network resilience were found.


Source: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/54/abstract


You are 100% wrong, genetic predisposition is not 100% required, non genetic related environmental issues during pregnancy also have been proven to cause autism. Environmental factor during the brains formation during pregnancy can cause changes to the structure and development of the brain, leading to autism. This has already been proven.

I would point out the gene you linked to that increases the risk of autism is in the majority of people. The C alle which is reference is found in over 70% of people. By this thinking the majority of people are predisposed to autism. That is the biggest issue with the genetic link to autism as all of the genes outside of a few rare genetic disorders that are shown to increase autism are all very common, some are found in over 90% of the population. So it doesn't mean much to say this gene predisposes someone to autism when over 50% of the babies being born have this gene.



DVCal
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20 Jan 2015, 3:17 am

Another issue with the genetics is that all of the genes that are known to significantly increase ones risk of autism also cause other profound issues. Genes such as fragile X, Retts, and RASoPathies. They are all also extremely rare, and 99% of people on the spectrum don't have them.

Other genes have been only shown to mildly increase ones risk of having autism, and these genes are all very common with the difference in autistic people and NT being very small. Such as 60% of autistic might have gene A, but NT it is only 55%.



eggheadjr
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20 Jan 2015, 1:34 pm

There are others in my family diagnosed with autism - so, in my case at least, I guess the fruit didn't fall too far from the tree.


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