PLT Test Blog

In today’s post there is more supposition than normal, but plenty of anecdotal evidence.  It follows on from the previous post that suggested calcification might be an issue in some types of autism .  As we know, many unrelated biological dysfunctions can lead to autism, but there do seem to be some commonly affected pathways. This subject is definitely worthy of much more detailed study than my post, which is based on an initial review of the science.  Some leading researchers, like Persico and Courchesne are fully aware of the issue.  I am not sure who would undertake such a study.  There is no physician specialty dedicated solely to osteoporosis, so we are lacking experts.  The bone-vascular axis is worthy of more study, as much for heart disease as autism. A variety of medical specialists treat people with osteoporosis, including internists, gynecologists, family physicians, endocrinologists, rheumatologists, physiatrists, orthopaedists, and geriatricia...

There have been yet more autism studies recently, highlighting neuroinflammation and the role of cells called microglia .  The result is this rather long post; but there is film to watch, if it gets heavy going. Glia derives from a Greek word for glue. The original thought was that the glial cells “glued” the neurons together. It turned out that glial cells do very much more and might be better thought of as “resident immune cells”.  They have other functions including synaptic pruning, which appears to have gone awry in autism.  They also form myelin, and when this goes wrong, big problems follow. Microglia are inside the blood brain barrier and one of their jobs is to swallow up any foreign bodies that should not be there, before they can do damage.  It appears that this process is mainly modulated via potassium channels.  The majority of research focuses on the calcium-activated K + channels, particularly KCNN4/KCa2 and 3.1, and ATP-sensitive K + channels (...