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Why would you not get vaccinated?

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There have been a lot of questions about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine, especially now that it is being offered to everyone 12 and up. At first it was restricted to the elderly, now other groups are eligible. But not everyone wants the vaccine and in fact about 30% of Americans either refuse or have serious questions about it. On this week’s ASF podcast, we interview Dr. Pam Feliciano of SPARK to find out what families affected with ASD think of the vaccine, and answer other questions around the safety of the vaccine vs. the risks of getting COVID. Below is a new article about mortality of COVID in people with ASD.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10803-021-05100-x.pdf

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Eye gaze and real-life early detection tools: An interview with researchers from Duke

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What babies look at during development and how much time they spend looking at people vs things has received a lot of criticism from some advocates who feel scientists should be spending less time on differences and more on practical solutions. Those two concepts are getting closer and closer and our early understandings of early autism features are now turning into applications to help better and earlier identification of ASD. This week, we talk to Geri Dawson and George Chang at Duke University who used these findings to piloted an app on an iPad. This app shows early promise of being used in a pediatricians office to support faster referral of toddlers for services and intervention.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33900383/

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A genetic first approach to subtypes?

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What causes some of the differences across people with autism? Can you predict who will have what features of autism by looking first at genetics? This week’s ASFpodcast is the first 20 minutes of a webinar with Samuel Chawner from Cardiff University that explains his findings about behavioral features across people with autism with difference in genetic makeup. The full webinar with video can be found here but you can listen to the presentation this week. There will also be more research on this topic.

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The 2021 INSAR quickie

This year’s annual meeting of autism researchers, INSAR, was virtual. But it didn’t stop hundreds of scientists from gathering online to discuss their viewpoints, findings, and the meaning for autism research to families. This week’s podcast captures some of the highlights, at least some of them, in a 30 minute talk. Some of the findings haven’t been peer reviewed, so they should be considered interesting-on-the-horizon discoveries that you should be excited about, but not to be taken as the gospel truth.

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You asked, we answered: what is the connection between the ‘gut’ and the brain?

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On this week’s podcast, we answer your question: “what’s the evidence of a gut-brain connection”? We can’t answer that question without starting off with a description of the microbiome. The microbiome is the colony of organisms in your gastrointestinal system that is showing increasing evidence of influencing brain function. We asked three experts: Calliope Holingue from JHSPH, Helen Vuong from UCLA and Stewart Campbell of Axial Therapeutics what is happening in research around the microbiome in autism, and what therapeutics are being developed to help those with GI issues and ASD.