PLT Test Blog

Need a wizard, or your local doctor? I was intrigued to come across a recent paper on immune modulatory treatments for autism by a couple of doctors from Massachusetts General Hospital for Children.   The lead author has interests in: ·       Autism spectrum disorders ·       Psychopharmacology ·       Developmental Disabilities ·       Williams syndrome ·       Angelman syndrome ·       Down syndrome Apparently, he is an internationally-recognized expert in the neurobiology and neuropsychopharmacology of childhood-onset neuropsychiatric disorders including autistic disorder.  Sounds promising, hopefully we will learn something new. The paper is actually a review of existing drugs, with immunomodulatory properties, that have already been suggested to be repurposed for autism. The abstract was not very insightful, so I have highl...

This blog does try to be based on evidence, but sometimes you do have to question the validity of what appears in peer reviewed journals.   It might concern what does, or does not cross the blood brain barrier, or what works in vivo versus in vitro. Two interesting papers were recently brought to my attention regarding Bumetanide. With a pinch of salt is an English idiom which means to view something with skepticism   In Tyler’s paper it was rats with epilepsy showing big improvements when taking Bumetanide.   In Agnieszka’s paper, involving mice and Chinese hamsters, researchers are making the point that so little Bumetanide crosses into the brain that its therapeutic value is limited.   So which is true?   Well it seems that in some humans with autism enough bumetanide crosses the blood brain barrier (BBB) to show a positive effect.   Perhaps if a more penetrative analogue of Bumetanide was developed, it would show even greater effect, otherwise adjunct ...

  A familiar site to Maja, the confluence of the Sava and the Danube Today’s post is to document an interesting discovery by Maja, one reader of this blog.  She is just ahead of some Korean researchers, who very recently published a paper in Experimental Neurobiology on the same subject. Maja noticed that giving a small dose of fish oil produced the same benefits as those often claimed for Oxytocin ; she then did some investigation and noted that an enzyme called CD38 upregulates oxytocin in the brain.  The level of CD38 is affected by inflammatory cytokines and certain vitamins.  In particular, all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) increases CD38 . All-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) is made in the body from vitamin A.  ATRA is also called vitamin A acid. Maja suggested this paper:- All-trans Retinoic Acid Upregulates Reduced CD38 Transcription in Lymphoblastoid Cell Lines from Autism Spectrum Disorder Deficits in social behavior in mice lacking the CD38 gene have...

Reader’s of this blog will be aware that serotonin plays a major role in autism, and also in many other mental health conditions, like depression. Vitamin D also regularly raises its head in discussions about autism.   You may recall the Somali autism clusters in Sweden and Minneapolis; researchers suggested that the Somali immigrants were not getting enough sun and therefore lacked vitamin D and so produced children with autism.   I did point out that another large Somali autism cluster exists in sun-drenched San Diego. Even Martha Herbert talks about vitamin D deficiency and autism. A while back we had a guest blogger, Seth Bittker, present his opposing view, that too much vitamin D added to food in the American diet may be contributing to the rise in autism there. In same week that Seth has published his paper on this subject, yet another paper has appeared with the opposing view.   So who is right? The case for (even) more Vitamin D The first paper is:-   Vit...