PLT Test Blog

Pregnenolone is the true mother hormone, being derived from cholesterol and the precursor of all steroid hormones.   It is a potent anti-inflammatory agent.   It is  also claimed that supplementing with Pregnenolone will increase IGF-1, which I found interesting, given my very recent post on IGF-1 therapy in autism .    In the late 1940’s and 1950’s successful studies were carried out into the use of Pregnenolone in the inflammatory condition of arthritis.  As we found in recent posts regarding the vagus nerve, all inflammatory conditions (autism included) share much in common.   A treatment that is effective against neuroinflammation in one condition should be tested in the others. Interest was high in Pregnenolone because it was cheap and free of troubling side effects.   Alternative steroid treatments, for example with Prednisone, can have major side effects. In an earlier post I referred to the successful use of the steroid Prednisone in...

It is good to know that there are some brilliant minds out there, willing to cross disciplines.   A case in point is Professor Stephen Porges, a neuroscientist with particular interests in understanding the neurobiology of social behavior .   He is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Director of the Brain-Body Center in the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago.   He has an equally clever wife who is a world leader in the role of neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin in social cognition. You would want to think twice before inviting this couple round for dinner, unless you had spent the day before boning up on your science.   Porges is best known for his Polyvagal Theory .   The Wikipedia article does not really do justice to the theory.   Here are two highly cited papers:- The polyvagal theory: phylogenetic substrates of a social nervous system (2001) The Polyvagal Theory: phylogenetic contributions to social behavio...

Y ou may or may not believe in fate, but some strange things have been happening related to Australia, growth hormones and TBI. Last week I took Monty, aged 10 with ASD, to have his IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor) measured.  At the time, this had nothing to do with autism, rather just what the Endocrinologist had requested.   Then I start doing my research on hormones and autism and found, surprisingly, there is an ongoing clinical trial in autism using IGF-1 .   Then I start looking again at TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), which I see as having much in common with ASD.   I looked for similarities in hormone disruptions found in TBI and ASD; I found there are many and they are mainly related to GH (growth hormone) and IGF-1.   The problem with IGF-1 therapy is that it is intravenous; I had told the Endocrinologist that I was not going to measure IGF-1, because I was not very keen on giving Monty intravenous drugs.   In the end, I did the test anyway and I ...

Today at 6.30 in the morning something very unexpected happened;   Monty, aged 10 with ASD, made his first joke.   For a boy of few words this is quite a big step. “I hit my head and now I can see birdies” Elder brother Ted, when he finally arose, was impressed. It was very much his kind of humour, making a joke about your own weaknesses. Regular readers will know that we are currently investigating the role of the vagus nerve in autism; all I can say is that nobody mentioned that the vagus nerve also mediates your sense of humour.   It may just be a happy coincidence, but this happened within 24 hours of our latest little experiment.    

Early on in this blog I wrote about a supposedly rare condition, where somebody suffers from sensory overload, usually from sound, but it could be light or even smell.   That condition has fancy sounding name, Hypokalemic Sensory Overload .   The cure is very simple, just to give oral potassium and within 20 minutes there is a full recovery.  Here is one research study .   I felt it odd that nobody had compared this to sensory overload in autism.   I did my own experiment at home and found to my surprise that sensory overload in autism could also be treated with oral potassium. In the last few weeks I received two very thoughtful comments on this blog, from adult sufferers who have found the same remedy as I have.   So at least I am no longer in a minority of one. The interesting thing about potassium in the human body is that it relies on another electrolyte, magnesium.   Without sufficient magnesium, the body cannot maintain an adequate level of pot...

Autism is a non-traumatic type of brain injury; the kind you typically see in the Emergency Room is TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), after a car crash or, in the US, a shooting. TBIs are very common and frequently fatal; when not fatal they often produce grave ongoing physical and psychological consequences, some of which may be life-long.  As a result there is a great deal of research into understanding TBIs and how to best treat them. In this blog we have already mentioned that statins are being used to successfully treat TBI.  As I discovered, they have an impact in autism as well. My renewed interest in TBI is two fold:- Does TBI cause ongoing hormonal changes in the brain? (as does ASD) Are there hormone therapies for TBI? (there are experimental ones for ASD) The answer is yes and yes. After a TBI there frequently are hormonal changes and they have even been given a name. Post TBI Hormonal Deficiency Syndrome The most frequently affected hormon...

When I started this blog 85 posts ago, I could not even spell endocrinology, let alone know how important it might be in my quest to figure out autism and how best to manage it.  Endocrinology is all about the biosynthesis, storage, chemistry, biochemical and physiological function of hormones and with the cells of the endocrine glands and tissues that secrete them. What does that have to do with autism? Well, 85 posts later, I think I can safely tell you that while oxidative stress and neuroinflammation in the damaged autistic brain are the two drivers of autism, most of the behavioural consequences are likely mediated by you child's endocrine system.  Like me, you can try as hard as you like to minimize oxidative stress and neuroinflammation and this will take you a long way; but the ultimate goal would be to give the endocrine system a little help to switch from autistic homeostasis towards neurotypical homeostasis.  Is this really possible?...

Piracetam was first synthesized in 1964 by a Romanian scientist called Corneliu Giurgea, who was highly unusual.  He was educated in then communist Romania, followed by research in Russia and then at the University of Rochester in the US, before ending up in Belgium, eventually as the Head of Research at drug firm UCB and being a Professor at a Belgian university.   How this was possible under the strict form of communism followed in Romania,  I do not really understand. Anyway, Giurgea was clearly very resourceful and he decided to invent a new class of drugs, to be called Nootropic. He stated that Nootropic drugs should have the following characteristics: 1.      They should enhance learning and memory. 2.      They should enhance the resistance of learned behaviors/memories to conditions which tend to disrupt them (e.g. electroconvulsive shock , hypoxia ). 3.      They should protect the brain against var...