Casting for the Cure

An international team of scientists studying genetic causes of autism spectrum disorders by focusing on families where both parents shared a recent ancestor, found that seemingly diverse genes linked to autism had something in common in that many were triggered by by brain development that is regulated by early childhood experience.

The findings support the emerging and rather exciting notion that autism is caused by disruptions in the formation of new connections in a baby’s brain during early learning experiences, which coincides with autism’s onset during a child’s first twelve months of life. The findings add to the excitement in that they introduce the element of hope: perhaps it is possible to develop therapies to reactivate the disabled genes.

The study is the work of US scientists Dr Christopher Walsh, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and who also works at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and at Children’s Hospital Boston, and geneticist Dr Eric Morrow of Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues in the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Kuwait. It is published in the 11th July issue of the journal Science.

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High levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDL), the “bad” cholesterol, have long been associated with memory problems experienced by the elderly but new research on the effects of the high-density lipoproteins (HDL), shows that high levels of the “good” cholesterol in middle age are beneficial in maintaining good memory well into the twilight years and may reduce the chances of developing age-related dementia.

HDL and memory lossThe British Whitehall II study, a long-term study of the health of more than 10,000 British civil servants, isolated 3,673 study participants, of whom 26.8% were women, during phases 5 and 7 of the study, which began in 1985, to analyze the effect of HDL on memory function as the study participants reached middle age.

The presence of memory impairment in middle age is a strong indicator of dementia developing later in life. People who are 65 years and older are the fastest growing age group in the world’s industrialized countries and are at the most risk of developing dementia.

For the sake of the study, a low level of HDL was considered to be 40 mg/dL while 60 mg/dL or higher was considered high. Performance on memory tests and blood-fat content were compared from phase 5 of the study, conducted in 1995, when study participants were of the average age of 55, to the same study participants when their average age was 61, during phase 7 of the study in 2002.

The memory tests involved a participant’s ability to recall 20 short words read to them one word at a time at an interval of two seconds per word. After hearing all 20 words, consisting of only one or two syllables, the participant was given two minutes to write down as many words as he or she could remember.

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