PLT Test Blog

Children with deprived childhoods become adults with smaller brains Autism is not just about genetics and environmental factors; the potential of nurture should not be overlooked. Today’s post was prompted by another follow-on study quantifying the benefit of nurture in early childhood. In the past I did look in depth at the long running US study called the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP). A similar study is the English and Romanian Adoptees (ERA) study.   They are relevant to this autism blog because they quantify the benefit of nurture in very early childhood and more importantly the lack of nurture. Quantifying the Benefits of Stimulation over Neglect in Early Childhood You may wonder why all these studies relate to Romania. Under  the Communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, contraception and abortion were forbidden, because he wanted population growth. Then in 1982 he decided that foreign debt is bad and must be paid off urgently; much of the country's economic o...

Since anecdotal evidence is beginning to support this blog’s suggestion that pro-myelinating therapy might be beneficial in autism, particularly improving human adaptive behaviour, I will continue to highlight further supporting research. Improving Jerry’s Brain Myelination - Hard without Tom Today’s main paper shows how social intervention can also be used as a pro-myelinating therapy (in mice, like Jerry). I found the research interesting, but I think most parents would opt for a pill as a short cut. The study looked at the effect of rearing an autistic mouse with social mice.  The autistic mouse shares the myelin defects of autistic humans. The research interestingly shows that it is the social interaction only after weening that has an impact on myelination. So in the human equivalent of this research, it is not interactions with Mum/Mom that matter most, it is interactions with toddler peers. So make sure your toddler with autism hangs out with bubbly neuro-typical toddlers, ...

Today’s post is about the Bucharest Early Intervention Project   (BEIP), which really deserves a mention somewhere in any autism blog.   It has been going for many years but they recently added some very tangible MRI data. BEIP is a long term study lead by Charles Nelson, a professor of neuroscience and psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  It compares the effect of neglect versus stimulation in early childhood. You may be wondering the relevance of this to autism, in particular since Kanner’s old theory about refrigerator mothers was debunked long ago. The study shows how physical development of the brain can be altered by the living environment of a young child.  It reinforces the fact that institutionalized of young children, with or without developmental disorders, is precisely the wrong strategy. Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) The Bucharest Early Intervention Project was a randomized controlled trial of foster care as an intervention for children a...