Herpes encephalitis is one cause of autism symptoms

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Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2002 Jun;11(3):142-6.
Autistic symptoms following herpes encephalitis.
Ghaziuddin M, Al-Khouri I, Ghaziuddin N.

Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor 48109-0390, USA. [email protected]

Autism is a childhood onset neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by reciprocal social deficits, communication impairment, and rigid ritualistic interests, with the onset almost always before three years of age. Although the etiology of the disorder is strongly influenced by genes, environmental factors are also important. In this context, several reports have described its association with known medical conditions, including infections affecting the central nervous system. In this report, we describe an 11-year-old Asian youngster who developed the symptoms of autism following an episode of herpes encephalitis. In contrast to previous similar reports, imaging studies suggested a predominant involvement of the frontal lobes. At follow-up after three years, he continued to show the core deficits of autism. This case further supports the role of environmental factors, such as infections, in the etiology of autism, and suggests that in a minority of cases, autistic symptoms can develop in later childhood.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12369775

See my other post at http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt56051.html if you want to know why I posted this.

correlation is not causation.

Oh. Not that again. If a person gets a viral infection and then develops autistic symptoms, it means that the viral infection likely caused the symptoms. It's quite clear that the autistic symptoms are the result of the infection.

CORRELATION = CAUSATION in the absence of another logical explanation.

Correlation is NEVER causation.

NEVER.

I disagree. What other explanation is there?

I guess we'll have to reject all the genetic studies that found a correlation between genes and autism since "Correlation is NEVER causation".

It seems plausible that encephalitis caused brain damage with autistic symptoms - it is well known that brain damage can cause autism, although this is not normally the case, and it is just as rare to develope autistic symptoms at the age of ten. (Per defininition, autistic disorder is apparent before the age of 3) One form of epilepsy, however, causes the developement of an autism-like condition, with loss of langauge and communicative skills.

I never had herpes. Neither did my parents. Except chicken pox which i got at age 6 and i was aspie before that.

My grandparents also have aspie traits. sorry but herpes encephalitis is not a cause of my ASD.

I can accept the hypothesis that herpes encephalitis can perhaps cause autistic-like changes to the brain, but I dont see why people have a philosophical problem with autistic genes existing in the population and being subject to inheritance.

In the stone age (and our bodies still are actually designed for this era, not the 2000's) autistic traits may not have been such a problem to have.. there was more natural food, less loud noises, and tribes instead of big impersonal crowds.

Aspies might have then made discoveries that advantaged the tribe. There was no gluten or casein or refined sugar being consumed either, lol.

Last edited by zen_mistress on 08 Feb 2008, 5:32 am, edited 3 times in total.

zen_mistress, that article isn't saying that herpes encephalitis is the cause of all ASDs!

I'm still editing .

A rare condition, head injuries also produce autistic symtoms, herpes is forever, most autistics do not have it.

Again, viral infection has been checked, it does not correlate with autism.

TV does.

Genitics do.

If TV was the cause, I would expect more, but it correlates very well with family history.

So you are looking for a cure in the 1/10% of atypical cases?

Head injury is more common.

So how does this relate to the 99.9% with no history of viral infection, or head injury?

What the article says is even in non-typical cases, the condition was not reversed in three years.

It is the same success rate we have with head injury, none, and with autism.

Even proving a causal agent, from any source, nothing reverses what has happened.

So what are you proposing that only strikes children under three in families with a history of autism?

A viral agent is not selective, it would spread in day care, playmates, and appear as clusters.

That does not happen.

Autism is an important part of the Human Genome, the most likely time for the mutation that caused it also coincides with the technological explosion that marks the Mesolithic, 35,000 years ago. As that group became the Europeans, and autism is predominatly European, it saturates the Genome.

It survived because it works, the benefits outweigh the problems.

You desire to cure Western Culture. Heart Disease, Diabites, Cancer, also run in families, and kill people. They still just live their lives and have children.

Autism does not kill, and produces some useful things for the population in general.

Autism is a childhood condition that lessens with age.

Autism cannot be cured, only accepted, and scarce resources should be used to improve the lives of autistic children. Some treatment works.

Nothing from the cure agenda works. Except as a scare tactic for raising money, pushing quack ideas, and trolling WP.

The horse is still dead.

Most people have herpes simplex; it can cause encephalitis (viral meningitis), especially in the immune suppressed, or a young individual who is already seriously ill.

Of course it could cause autism if the swollen meninges damage portions of the brain that are involved in autism; there's like a zillion causes for autism.

Viral, bacterial, chemical, genetic; all of these have been proven to cause autism.

That's a little like saying, 'If the rooster crows and then the sun rises, it means that the rooster crowing caused the sun to rise. It's quite clear that the sun rising is a result of the rooster crowing.' To prove the link for most infectious diseases, you need to fulfil Koch's postulates
<-link

Correlation equals Causation???????



Beau's right - NEVER! Even when there is no logical explanation. Two conditions are just that - two conditions. Not one.

1 + 1 = 2. 1 + 1 <> 1 (Basic LOGICAL mathematics!)

One that we haven't found out yet.... Jumping to conclusions \= science. Forming hypotheses and then testing them = science.

I guess we will have to throw out most scientific studies since many of them ARE correlations including almost every genetic study on autism. Oh wait, does correlation = causation when TLPG agrees with the study's conclusion? I bet if a study found a chromosome abnormality in autistics, you'd say it causes autism because correlation = causations when it agrees with your beliefs, right?