Posted on

More about the environmental influences in autism

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

New research points to a previously understudied but fascinating mechanism by which environmental factors may lead to autism: it’s called the “GABA/glutamate switch” which is a critical period in development when certain cells turn from turning on cell activity to turning them off. These environmental factors may delay this process leading to long term effects on the developing brain consistent with autism. While this data on the mechanism is brand new, the topic of the environment in autism was inspired by a recent effort at NIEHS which is developing an interactive database for people to access information about what environmental exposures have been studied and how in autism.

https://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/events/aware

https://www.pnas.org/doi/epub/10.1073/pnas.2406928121

Posted on

Exploiting genetics to understand environmental risks for autism

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

On March 13th, Dr. Mark Zylka from UNC gave a 60 minute overview of how researchers are using autism-relevant genetic mutations in cells to start to understand the interactions between genetics and thousands of environmental factors on gene expression.  He pointed out the convergence of pathways in how genes and these environmental factors worked in the brain, and they included:  neuroinflammation, early brain development, turning neurons on and off, and cell signaling.  Dr. Valerie Hu from George Washington University commented on the important impact of these results and perspective from her lab studying epigenetically modified genes, like RORA, which also may be sensitive to common chemicals found in our environment.  The entire webinar, including the questions that they were able to answer from participants, is found here.