How does Tuberoous Scroloses cause autism?

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You a few people on the spectrum have Tuberous Scroloses (TS)? Is the TS that they have just a co-morbid, just something which just comes with the autism, like epilepsy, ADHD, LD's, etc, or is it actually a specific cause of autism. If it is then how does TS cause autism? And what is the link between TS & Autism?

TS and autism are two seperate conditions, they are on no way causally linked.
actually, almost all the other conditions you listed are seperate of autism, although they are often co-morbids, it is not needed

About 50% of people with TS have autism. I know it's a seperate condition, but autism is still very common in TS & I want to know if it's the TS that's the co-morbid of the autism, or if it's the TS that causes the autism, when they come together. And I most of the other conitions I mentioned were seperate too, but they still often come with autism.

Where did you hear this? I think you're wrong about that.

I think I heard it on the Channel 4 documentary, "Born to be Different", it said with one of the boys who had TS, he had as 50% chance of developing severe autism & Learning Disabilities. It said it was fairly common. Look on Wikapidia or a website about TS, & I bet it'll mention autism quite a lot in it.

I checked the wiki on TB, there was no mention of autism. A google search of autism and TB brought a few studies possibly linking a mother having TB to her child having an increased chance of a mental disability, including autism. Also there were some studies about a TB drug being tested as a possible treatment for autistic kids. But I found nothing like what you said. So please find something and link it here.

On Wikipidea - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberous_Sclerosis: go down to were you see '"Central nervous system", there you should read, "61% of affected individuals meet the diagnostic criteria for autism, with an even higher proportion showing features of a broader pervasive developmental disorder". Shows that it's an even percentage that I thought. More than half are autistic according to Wiki.

@sacrip
Oh... I've just noticed; you're talking about something different from me! You're talking about TB, when I'm talking about Tuberous Scroloses (TS). There both 2 diferent things. Sorry, that was all a misunderstanding.

This quote from the TSC Association UK:

So by applying very basic maths (even that I can do!) then technically yes it is about 50%. I know someone who has TSC with AS (They put the C on to stop the confusion with Tourette syndrome). I think you are at a 50-50 risk of having an ASD with TSC but having an ASD doesn't make you more likely to have TSC.

Sorry if that was a load of pointless babble...

And here's a link to their website:

http://www.tuberous-sclerosis.org/?page_id=58

Just in case you are interested

Yup, I thought you were misspelling TB in your posts. I haven't heard of TSC until now. Well, now there's a new thing I know.

Thanks for your help. So, when TSC comes with autism; is it a cause of it, or is just something which just comes with it, but we don't know why; like autism & epliepsy? Except of course, epilepsy's far more common in autism, as there aren't many ASD people who have TS even though there are a lot of TSC people who are autistic. But TSC is quite a rare condition.

I think from what I understand TSC causes growths in the brain, and therefore brain damage. That's probably what causes their high rate of autism.

But brain damage doesn't cause autism. So how does TSC cause it?

Tuberous Sclerosis has a frequency of 1 out of 20,000 people. Autistic Spectrum Disorders amongst those with Tuberous Sclerosis is 43%-86% in epidemiological studies.

I discovered this because my Shagreen Patches have again been irritated by something, along with subungual fibromas disrupting my toe nail anatomy. I also have epilepsy, and epilepsy happens in 78% of cases of Tuberous Sclerosis. I have genetic dental problems that are also very common with Tuberous Sclerosis. My very large, and unusual type, of Becker's Nevus is not suppose to be related to Tuberous Sclerosis, but many types of nevi are. If these readily apparent impairments were independent of each other, the chances that I would have them would be about one out of a few hundred million, while having them as a result of Tuberous Sclerois would be about one out of thirty thousand. Money stops me from getting genetic testing for Tuberous Sclerosis and genetic disorders possibly independent of it (such has genetic hypodontia, other nevi tuberous disorders, LQTS-2, etc.).

Whether Autism is associated from the epilepsy, or directly from the sclerosis (which may have "caused" everything else) "remains to be examined". From: "Neurocutaneous Syndromes and Epilepsy—Issues in Diagnosis and Management" by J. Helen Cross, page 18 (Epilepsia, 46(Suppl. 10):17–23, 2005), often at:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... x/abstract
The more relevant references are:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12023313
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10550700
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16174309

If I have Tuberous Sclerosis, the epilepsy is the most disruptive, the autism is more of Asperger's, the heart conditions more like LQTS-2, with minor to moderate liver, kidney, skin, dental, and digestive problems from other possible "tubers" in fluctuating disruptions.

Much confusion results from the "a priori" nature of DSM disorders, versus the much more empirical base for nearly exclusive physical disorders often with strong correlations to DSM disorders.

Tadzio

"Tuberous sclerosis is one of the few established medical causes of autism spectrum disorder and is a unique neurogenetic model for testing theories about the brain basis of the syndrome."
Full article often at: http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/125/6/1247.long

It does in some cases. Autism isn't caused by one thing but by many different things. And there are a number of brain areas that, if damaged, result in specific kinds of autistic behavior. Such as frontal lobe damage causing perseveration and executive dysfunction, or right-hemisphere damage causing difficulty understanding nonverbal cues and tone of voice (NVLD is often caused by right-hemisphere brain damage) or so forth. Damage to enough of those areas would cause someone to meet the criteria for an autism spectrum condition, and if the damage happened early enough they'd meet the onset criteria too.

Brain damage can even cause strengths. People with frontotemporal dementia (where the frontal lobes and tempioral lobes progressively degenerate) sometimes develop artistic or other creative talents at a certain stage in the condition, because lack of inhibition means they no longer suppress irrelevant ideas and so those ideas turn into creative inspiration.

So does that mean that someone whose just had a car accident & has got brain damage could have autism as a result? That's interesting. If ASD is common TSC tho; that must mean that the areas of brain damage must be the same as it is in autism right? For autism to be so common in it. So, do you think that's why so many severely autistic people suffer from epilepsy, because epilepsy can cause brain dame just like TSC, so it often cause's autism? So, could that mean that autism in general can be cause by brain damage, or just simply specific Learning Difficulties which happen to be in the area's that autism is effected in?