PLT Test Blog

Lay summary: ·         Oxidative injury can be caused by both oxidative stress and the opposite, reductive stress.  ·         Both extremes of redox balance are known to cause cardiac injury ·         Both extremes of redox balance disrupt mitochondria ·         It appears that either extreme of redox balance may occur in autism. Reductive stress is the opposite of oxidative stress and I am calling it “Atypical Autism” because all the research shows that the great majority of autism and indeed schizophrenia is associated with oxidative stress. NAC and stereotypy/stimming Most young children with classic autism exhibit stereotypy/stimming; this kind of obsessive, repetitive behavior can really get in the way of daily life.  You can use the principles of ABA to limit or redirect this behavior, but it turns out that there is a biological cau...

This post is about nasal spray drugs and Oxytocin . Monty, aged 12 with ASD, uses a conventional anti-histamine nasal spray and I do sometimes wonder just how much of the drug reaches its target.   With inhalers for asthma this is a well known problem and often even adults do not use them correctly; they are proven to work much better when they are fitted with a spacer chamber, that way the drug ends up in your lungs and not stuck to the inside of your mouth. Many adults with asthma and COPD nowadays use spacers. So my interest was drawn to a company called Optinose that is developing drugs for nasal delivery using a novel dispenser.  I was particularly surprised that in its small drug pipeline is an oxytocin spray for autism. If you look on the US National Institute of Health website listing clinical trials of oxytocin and autism , you will find that thirty, yes three zero, studies are listed. According to their website, Optinose intend to be the first to bring a product...

Before I return to the science-heavy posts, this is another post to encourage people not just to read about autism, but to treat it.  No pseudoscience or great expense is required. After close to three years of using biology, rather than just behavioral therapy, where have we got to? Acquiring new skills is effortless for clever typical kids; we have also got one of those.  For kids with classic autism, even the most basic skills need to be taught and taught again, until eventually, they might sink in.  I do not think this has anything to do with permanent MR/ID (mental retardation/intellectual disability), although I can see why it often gets diagnosed as such; it turns out to be treatable. In the race to keep up with the typical kids, or at least keep them in sight, we started with ABA and about 1,800 hours a year of 1:1 time with an assistant.  After a few years the typical kids had pulled far ahead. At age 9, I started to correct the underlying dysfunctions, fir...

  We have seen in this blog that many hundreds of different dysfunctions can lead to symptoms broadly diagnosed as autism.   At the same time, the boundary at which people seek to medicalize behavioral problems continues to shift (more ADHD, more autism etc.), making it now hard to know what people mean by “autism”. Rather than grading autism severity 1, 2 or 3, which is the new clinical practice under the American psychiatrists’ DSM5, my scheme might be more useful, since it would also show the variability of the symptoms. I would rate “autism” on a scale of 1 to 100, but would state typical and peak values.  This could be established via an intelligent questionnaire given to parents and teachers.  It certainly would remain subjective and be far from perfect. 0 to 100 scale, with typical to peak Some examples:- Asperger’s plus Sensory Somebody with what used to be called Asperger’s, who attends mainstream school, but has now developed s...