f brain connectivity is the biological problem that gives rise to autism disorders will  effective treatments and cures be developed targeting the connectivity issues?

'People have started to look at autism as a developmental disconnection syndrome - there are either too many connections or too few connections between different parts of the brain,' says Sahin.

Sahin hopes that the brain's miswiring can be corrected by drugs targeting the molecular pathways that cause it.

Now, researchers led by Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD, of Children's Department of Neurology, provide evidence that mutations in one of the TSC's causative genes, known as TSC2, prevent growing nerve fibers (axons) from finding their proper destinations in the developing brain.

Sahin and colleagues showed that when mouse neurons were deficient in TSC2, their axons failed to land in the right places.

Further investigation showed that the axons' tips, known as "growth cones," did not respond to navigation cues from a group of molecules called ephrins.

Here are answers from a top expert, Dr. Susan Levy of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dr. Levy says, while about 80% of autism is idiopathic (of unknown cause), there are at present many known causes of autism including FAS, rubella, Fragile X Syndrome, and more. In addition, according to a a report published in Pediatrics in 2009 entitled "Prevalence of parent-reported diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder among children in the US, 2007," as many as 40% of children who received an autism spectrum disorder at some point in their lives are no longer diagnosable on the autism spectrum.

Researchers have known for years that when one identical twin has autism, the other is also likely to be diagnosed with it – evidence that autism likely has a genetic component.

Researchers at Kennedy Krieger Institute studied 277 pairs of twins and found that when one identical twin had the disorder, the other developed it 88 percent of the time; for fraternal twins, that figure was 31 percent.

Despite this progress in unlocking the mysteries of autism, scientists have simply confirmed that there are likely numerous genetic links to autism.

This approach makes it easier to understand both commonalities and differences between ASD and other conditions, such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). This approach will make it possible to test predictions about the location of these brain networks, how they function differently in people with ASD and how to use this knowledge to design interventions and compensatory strategies.

A recent study of a U.S. metropolitan area estimates that 3.4 of every 1,000 children between 3 and 10 years-old have Autism.

the study found, children who had received the MMR vaccine actually had a lower risk of autism than their unvaccinated peers. Nor was there any evidence of an increased autism risk with the measles-only vaccine.

parents leaving their offices with an autism spectrum diagnosis for their child will have a clear plan of action for getting their child the help they need, where and when they need it.

Researchers will develop a better understanding of autistic subgroups, so that it will become possible to recommend appropriate treatments and therapies based on individuals' symptoms, challenges and strengths.

Less time, money, energy and angst will go into confrontation, and more time, money, energy and love will go into autism-related volunteerism, mentoring, program development, and other positive activities.

Future research may allow therapists to know in advance which type of applied behavior analysis (ABA therapy) is most likely to work for any given child with autism.

This study of six children was designed to see if it is possible to predict which type of ABA therapy will work for which child with autism.

The authors were able to predict which children would respond to pivotal response training, but not which ones would respond to discrete trial training. The authors note that all children were first exposed to pivotal response training and then to discrete trial training and this may have influenced the results. Children who liked toys were more likely to respond to pivotal response training than children who did not like toys.

Pivotal Response Teaching  is an Advanced Behavioral Treatment intervention based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and derived from the work of Drs. Koegel, Schreibman, Dunlap, Horner, Burke and other researchers.

PRT builds upon the older ABA paradigms and has a focus on targeting “Pivotal” skills or behaviors in order to produce more broad changes in a child’s development.

Pivotal Response Training (PRT) provides a guideline for teaching skills and has been most successful for language, play and social interaction skills in children with autism and related disorders. 

In the meantime, we draw some practical conclusions for the care of other persons with special needs who have some savant skill. We recommend that family and other caregivers “train the talent,” rather than dismissing such skills as frivolous, as a means for the savant to connect with other people and mitigate the effects of the disability. It is not an easy path, because disability and limitations still require a great deal of dedication, patience and hard work—as Kim’s father, by his example, so convincingly demonstrates.

Theory guides us in one respect. Kim’s brain shows abnormalities in the left hemisphere, a pattern found in many savants. What is more, left hemisphere damage has been invoked as an explanation of why males are much more likely than females to display not only savantism but also dyslexia, stuttering, delayed speech, and autism.

The proposed mechanism has two parts: male fetuses have a higher level of circulating testosterone, which can be toxic to developing brain tissue; and the left hemisphere develops more slowly than the right and therefore remains vulnerable for a longer period. Also supporting the role of left hemisphere damage are the many reported cases of “acquired savant syndrome,” in which older children and adults suddenly develop savant skills after damage to the left hemisphere.

although autism is more commonly linked with savantism than is any other single disorder, only about half of all savants are autistic.

The study, published online today in the journal Pediatrics, examined an intervention called the Early Start Denver Model, which combines applied behavioral analysis (ABA) teaching methods with developmental 'relationship-based' approaches.

The five-year study took place at the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle and was led by Dawson, then a professor of psychology and director of the university's Autism Center, in partnership with Rogers. It involved therapy for 48 diverse, 18- to 30-month-old children with autism and no other health problems.

At the conclusion of the study, the IQs of the children in the intervention group had improved by an average of approximately 18 points, compared to a little more than four points in the comparison group. The intervention group also had a nearly 18-point improvement in receptive language (listening and understanding) compared to approximately 10 points in the comparison group. Seven of the children in the intervention group had enough improvement in overall skills to warrant a change in diagnosis from autism to the milder condition known as 'pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified,' or PDD-NOS. Only one child in the community-based intervention group had an improved diagnosis.

The view of the behavior analyst should be that the subject is always right. If the child isn't learning, you need to know why. It's not that the child is defective, it's that the approach isn't working. The therapist needs to ask, "what do I need to do to teach this child?" ...Being autistic shouldn't stop children from learning. It has nothing to do with their ability to learn. They just don't learn typically. That's the problem we have. You can't use "autism" as way to explain behaviors: it is the behaviors. Why do the behaviors occur? We don't always know. But that doesn't mean we can't teach children with autism language and social interaction. They don't need us to have fun -- they can create their own reinforcers. The therapist has to find a reinforcer that's better than what the child can do on his own. That "better thing" should always have a social component.

Estudios recientes constatan el efecto positivo de las dietas sin gluten y sin caseína en los niños autistas. Se han detectado péptidos anormales en la orina atribuidos a la incapacidad del organismo de descomponer esas proteínas en los aminoácidos. Las sustancias más problemáticas son el gluten y la caseína de la dieta.

Estos componentes mal metabolizados producirían los neuropéptidos caseomorfina (derivada de todos los productos lácteos) y gliadinmorfina (procedente de cereales como el trigo, la avena, el centeno, la cebada y el triticale), que pasarían al torrente sanguíneo y de ahí al cerebro, donde actúan como los opioides endógenos y provocan toxicidad. Esto explicaría parte de los síntomas autistas.

Pese a los positivos resultados encontrados, se necesitan más ensayos controlados aleatorios de gran escala y de buena calidad antes de generalizar el uso de este tipo de dietas en personas con autismo.

The type of mercury used in thimerosal is generally cleared from the body within six weeks, which in theory would render it harmless. But according to those researchers who believe that the preservative causes autism, babies born during that 20-year window were injected with many times the "safe" level as determined by the FDA -- and some, they feel, were genetically incapable of clearing the doses of mercury from their bodies. Mercury is, in fact, a neurotoxin, and the theory is that the recent leap in autism diagnoses can be directly tied to thimerosal.

In 2004, the Institute of Medicine undertook a comprehensive review of all the published literature on thimerosal and autism and concluded that the available evidence demonstrate that there was no link. The CDC launched a series of studies that examined the relationship between the incidence of autism and the amount of mercury a child received in the first 6 months of life and also found no relationship. Although all published credible studies have found no link between thimerosal and autism, some continue to be unconvinced.

At present, the thimerosal controversy continues, even though the removal of thimerosal from vaccines has not resulted in lower rates of autism diagnoses.

Is Asperger syndrome appropriately included under the autism spectrum umbrella? Or should it, perhaps, be a separate diagnosis of its own, unconnected to autism?