ASF Weekly Science Podcasts

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This week is a more philosophical, ideological discussion of the origins of social behaviors inspired by review articles written by Mayada Elsabbagh at McGill University and Boaz Barak and Guoping Feng at MIT. The focus of these papers are: when social behaviors emerge, and what brain regions are responsible for their existence. While Dr. Elsabbagh thinks of the question in terms of when behaviors and symptoms emerge in infancy, Drs. Barak and Feng consider the issue by comparing autism to Williams Syndrome. Williams Syndrome is very similar to autism except people with WS are hyper social and empathetic and sometimes gregarious. One tiny change on one area of one gene makes all the difference. This podcast doesn’t settle the question, but hopefully shows you listeners why there is a debate and how it is important for people with autism.

April 25, 2016

Having autism is challenging, but being a minority with autism is extra challenging

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The recent prevalence numbers for autism were stable from 2014 at 1 in 68. However, a disparity in prevalence still exists for those of hispanic or african-american backgrounds. While these groups are under diagnosed, little research has focused on what it is like to have autism and also be from one of these races today. Gazi Azad and colleagues studied friendships during adolescence in people with autism across different racial backgrounds and what they found will sadden you. Also, what goes into that 1 in 68 number? As it turns out premature births accounts for a significant portion. And if you didn’t have a premature birth and still had a child with autism? Remember it accounts for a chunk, not the whole thing.

April 18, 2016April 17, 2016

What you missed at the ASF 3rd annual Day of Learning

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If you couldn’t make it to the ASF Day of Learning last week, this week’s podcast provides a 10 minute summary. Not the same as being there, but it will do. We will have videos of each presentation up soon, but this provides a quick recap. Researchers from basic science, translational research and those with a clinical perspective provided 12 minute summaries of different research areas. This included studying autism behaviors in mice, the role of single gene disorders to autism where there are hundreds of genes involved, understanding anxiety and technologies in the classroom to mitigate stress reactions, understanding recurrence of autism in the children of siblings with ASD, and resilience in females. The podcast also includes pictures from the event.

April 11, 2016April 10, 2016

Pre-autism symptoms and the genetics behind them

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Instead of looking at genes associated with the big “autism”, researchers at the University of Miami are considering how genes influence specific autism features present very early on in life. In this week’s podcast, two investigators, Devon Gangi and Nicole McDonald, explore how genetic variants influence behaviors that are not autism, but predictive of autism. Even more intriguing is how these genes regulate the effects of environmental variables on later behavior. While it isn’t autism specifically, this approach may provide a better perspective on all those hundreds of genes associated with an autism diagnosis. Hopefully this will lead to add on therapies to speed up the progress of behavioral interventions.

April 4, 2016April 3, 2016

What does autism awareness mean for the one in sixty eight?

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In honor of world autism awareness day, this podcast is dedicated to the new prevalence numbers of 8 year old children with autism. Is this a trend that it is no longer on the rise? Given that people with autism need awareness, support, understanding, help and boatloads of help getting them, this is a good time to know where those numbers came from. There is more that needs to be done, especially for those that are not caucasian and need better access to services.

March 28, 2016March 27, 2016

Autism genes that are seen in everyone

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This was a very genetics-centric week because of two exciting new publications that focused on genetic risk factors. In the first, Dr. William Brandler at UCSD demonstrates that mutations in autism risk genes come in all sorts of different forms, but they must be in the right genes to lead to a diagnosis. Just having different mutations is not enough. Also, in an intriguing analysis led by Dr. Elise Robinson at the Broad Institute (and also summarized on SpectrumNews), she looked at these autism risk genes in people without autism and found that we all have them. Reiterating what Dr. Brandler found, she showed that the spectrum of autism genetics may be broader than the spectrum of an autism diagnosis. It may explain symptoms of autism without a diagnosis in family members as well.

March 21, 2016

The world agrees on studies of early autism. Find out what they think.

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Studies of very early signs of autism, even before an official diagnosis can be made, has led to better recognition of early signs and driven earlier and earlier interventions. These interventions have improved the lives of people with autism. The biological signs like brain activity, structure and genetics could further improve early intervention paradigms that look at biomarkers rather than just behavioral features. Studies of these early signs are best looked at through symptoms in younger siblings of those with a diagnosis, who have a 20x higher risk of ASD compared to those who do not. To move to even more high impact discoveries, researchers need more families to participate. But what do families really think of this type of research? Adults and parents agree on the value of understanding the early signs of autism, but not always about what to call it. This week’s podcast explains.

March 14, 2016March 13, 2016

Help for children with minimal language

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About 25-30% of children with autism show language impairment or no language at all, and these families often use assisted communication devices like picture exchange to help their children communicate. Recently, electronic communication devices like the iPad have revolutionized the way that people communicate, but little research has been done on how and if they are really effective. This week, a multidisciplinary group of researchers added an assisted communication device, an iPad, to behavioral intervention for a 9 month trial. As it turns out, the group with all 3 (language intervention, behavioral intervention and the communication device) showed the greatest gains in language and speech, but only when the intervention was intense. This new study shows that in the right context, these devices can help those who do not communicate with words, and provides preliminary proof that this technology is indeed helpful.

March 7, 2016

The full environmental epigenetics webinar from March 4th

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We are pleased to present the 2nd environmental epigenetics webinar featuring Dr. Dana Dolinoy of University of Michigan and Dr. Carol Yauk of Carelton University in Canada. The presentations are entitled “Environmental Exposures and the Germline: Investigating Causes of Epigenomic and Genomic Errors”.

March 7, 2016March 7, 2016

A short recap of the environmental epigenetics of autism webinar.

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On Thursday, Autism Science Foundation, Autism Speaks and the Escher Fund for Autism co-organized the 2nd in the series of environmental epigenetic of autism webinars to the community. Dr. Dana Dolinoy of U. Michigan and Dr. Carol Yauk of Carleton University in Canada provided a summary of recent data that showed how environmental exposures affect not just the offspring, but potentially future generations. In addition, common exposures may cause mutation in the cells that form sperm and eggs of humans, influencing multiple generations. This is done through epigenetics or the turning on or turning off of the DNA. The epigenome has been somewhat the ‘forgotten stepchild’ of human genetics, which is slowly changing. The full webinar will also be posted on asfpodcast.org but in case you don’t have time for the whole 2 hours, this is a 10 minute summary. Finally, hear what we really think about the USPSTF statement on universal screening.

Here is the picture I promised in the podcast!