What is the IACC and what do they do?

On this week’s podcast we interview Dr. Susan Daniels who is the National Autism Coordinator for the Department of Health and Human Services. This position is created by the Autism CARES Act (which is under reauthorization) and represents one of the only disorders that provides coordinating functioning across funding agencies. We talk about what her office does, what the IACC is responsible for, and what the strategic plan for autism from the IACC advises congress to do. She also discusses some upcoming events for Autism Awareness Month.

Links referenced in our conversation are below:

https://iacc.hhs.gov

https://iacc.hhs.gov/publications/strategic-plan/2023/

https://iacc.hhs.gov/funding/data/

https://p2a.co/tCy86Lk

Top reasons to study the autistic brain

There are dozens of good reasons why scientists need to study the brains of people with autism. One is to understand what happens in the brain as people with autism get older and see how the brain changes over time. Another is to identify mechanisms of autism to help all neuroscientists figure out how the brain works. A third is improve medicine by determining what helps what people at what age. Scientists @UCDavis, @Penn and @UCLA examined the individual brain cells of people with autism to address these three questions, revealing that the autistic brain shows some similarities to brains of people with Alzheimer’s Disease. In addition, inflammation seen in the brain may be caused by too much activity of cells talking to each other. Studying the brains of people with autism is essential to better understanding and is made possible by families who are committed to research. www.autismbrainnet.org.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36862688/

“Emergent and Transactional” with Dr. Andrew Whitehouse

This week’s ASF podcast returns with a special guest: Dr. Andrew Whitehouse from the University of Western Australia talks about a new unifying theory of the spectrum of autism symptoms and features. It’s called “emergent and transactional”, and while the original author was Dr. Jonathan Green from the UK, Dr. Whitehouse wrote a clear explanation of what it means. He also provides his perspective on the broad spectrum of experiences, feelings and priorities in the autism community and how this new theory might bring together at least some of the views. We also discuss how courage and humility are needed by the entire community to reduce the vitriol.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37434277/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37438108/

Can you say strengths and deficits at the same time?

People tend to go towards a “strengths only” or “weaknesses only” approach to describing autism. But even if you think about a single aspect of autistic challenges – social communication – autistics can show both. How can you measure this, and even more importantly, document it to play to someones strengths while addressing their impairments at the same time? Special guests Dr. Matthew Lerner and Jacquelyn Gates from Stony Brook University explain how this can be done by clinicians.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36573397/

Genetics does not equal eugenics

Sometimes when the autism community hears the words “genetics research”, it conjures up images of using genetics to eliminate people with autism. In fact, that’s not the goal of genetics research, nor is it even possible. Recently, several new studies were publish which illustrate how genetics can be used to help people understand their diagnosis, and receive more targeted supports. Special guest Jonathan Sebat from UCSD provides perspective on these findings and why genetics research is misunderstood.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35654973/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35654974/

https://www.genome.gov/event-calendar/irreducible-subjects-disability-and-genomics-in-the-past-present-and-future

Is anxiety related to autism, and where is it in the brain?

Anxiety is common in people with autism – but is is different than other types of anxiety or similar? Is it part of the autism phenotype? When does it start and what triggers it? Two new studies which use a longitudinal design and examine the links between autism features, anxiety symptoms and brain development are summarized this week. It shows that the amygdala is important, that some features of anxiety are core to ASD and some are separate, and it is related to autism features like insistence on sameness. This has implications for how anxiety is diagnosed and treated in those with ASD.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35871413/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9116934/?report=printable

Autism means different things to different people

At this year’s International Society of Autism Research meeting in Austin, TX, there was a variety of themes explored. From early development and milestones, to intervention and supports, to different features like sensory issues, treatment, and how to solve the problem of heterogeneity. It comes down to this: Autism means different things to different people. This is just a small subset of everything that was presented at #INSAR2022 and I hope that if you want to see more, you advocate to have the presentations posted online or even have the program book made available publicly. In the meantime, enjoy the 30 minute summary.

www.autism-insar.org

New ways to solve old problems

This week’s podcast focuses on innovative methodologies to understand how to reach black families, understand why and when autistic people prefer not to look at faces and how interventions can improve conversation and social communication. They use culturally and racially matched mentors, old home video tapes (keep taking those!) and machine learning to look not just at novel methods but novel ways of studying a particular outcome.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35232271/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35228613/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35229983/

Watershed moments in development

Autism diagnosis at 3 years of age isn’t something that happens suddenly. It evolves, there are deficits seen early on and markers that are evident prior to 3 years. Some of them are cascading events – with problems in one area like motor function, other behaviors like reaching, grasping, and learning about the environment and interactions with other people are stunted. Sometimes, these cascading moments lead to a loss of language. Early intervention can turn these early deficits around so that communication, learning and daily functioning are continually supported and instead of one trajectory, another can be reached. This podcast highlights studies that demonstrate that with data, and with theory. But it is never boiled down to one thing, despite early studies that screen time use is linked with an ASD diagnosis.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35098539/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35099540/

https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdep.12439

How important is the sensory system?

Most people with autism have some sort of sensory dysfunction: hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity or sensory avoiding behaviors to touch, smell, sound, light. But a new study looking at kids from the Study to Explore Early Development (SEED) suggest that it may be more important than you think. In fact, it was the only feature to unify those with autism compared to those with developmental delay. Are there treatments outside of environmental supports to help sensory issues? There could be: a drug that tried and failed to treat other features of autism called arbacolfen supports the idea that this drug target could be helpful in treating sensory issues.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34985973/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34967132/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34873147/