PLT Test Blog

It appears that in classic autism, most of the damage is done before birth, but a gradual second decline does often seem to occur between 24 and 54 months, even in a child who you would not think of as suffering from regressive autism. When people think back about their child with regressive autism, they often recall examples of odd behaviours occurring long before the big regression occurred. So my "extrapolation" from this, is that there are actually two waves of neurological damage in these two common types of autism. It is just that in one case there is a tidal wave before birth and a smaller change as a toddler.   In regressive autism, the first wave usually passes unnoticed, and the main, unmistakable damage occurs in the second wave. Perhaps we can avoid this first wave of damage done before birth, in both classic early onset autism and regressive autism. In an earlier post, I made my case for why girls do not get mild autism and why mothers, who are alpha-females, are...

This blog is all about clever chemicals that can make life better for people with autism, but for several years I have also been learning all about behavioral therapy to achieve the same goal.   So I thought I should look for any lessons that I might apply from my earlier endeavours.   Two of the best books in my ABA collection, based on feedback from all of our Assistants/Therapists/Friends are the oldest, and indeed the lightest.   They are more than 30 years old, as you might imagine from the front cover, which is a big turn off for many parents. They are great books , that tell you what you actually want to know: how to get rid of horrible behaviours and how to encourage nice ones. Dr Foxx is still going strong and won the 2013 Award for Distinguished Professional Contributions to Applied Research from the American Psychological Association. Foxx is a professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State Harrisburg and an adjunct professor of pediatrics at the Pennsylvan...

  I think the wrong people are in charge of autism research; forensic scientists or even air-crash investigators might do much better. We have seen in this blog that many drugs have a positive effect in specific types of autism. In many, but not all cases, the mechanism of that drug and its effect on the pathology of autism is understood.   If you have followed an ABA programme, you will know that an experienced autism therapist would very easily be able to give a long list of behavioral issues that occur in varying combinations among her clients. From reading the research, it is clear that the people who understand the biology, often do not understand the psychology and the behavioral issues they are trying to treat - but perhaps they should.   Only then can you target treatments for specific problems.   There can be no single drug for autism, but there can be a drug for obsessive behaviours, and another for self-injury.   You cannot say a low do...

This post is not about your IPad, it’s still about autism. There are a few important substances that I have not fully addressed yet in this blog; as is often the case in biology, the names do all rather look alike.   A complete understanding of these 4 Gs will definitely help to understand the literature and hopefully separate science from pseudoscience and the voodoo. We know for a fact that in autism some strange things are going on here, but it remains to be proved exactly what is going on, and whether all types of autism are similarly affected.   So it may be premature to visit the supplement shop.   The 4 Gs Glutamine, like Creatine, is one of those chemicals that is widely used by body builders and sometimes given to children with autism.   It is an amino acid. Glutamine is a precursor chemical to Glutamate.   Glutamate is a major excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain. Glutamate is a precursor chemical to GABA, another very important neurotransmitter...

I have touched on the subject of epigenetics in a previous post; it is a new area of science that shows how the environment can modify your genes.   Rather than you being purely a product of your parents’ genes, you actually also have both your own environmentally acquired epigenetic changes, and some of the acquired epigenetic changes of your ancestors. These acquired epigenetic changes are caused by things like emotional trauma, chemical insults and even smoking. Epigenetic control systems generally involve three types of proteins: “writers”, “readers”, and “erasers.” Writers attach chemical marks, such as methyl groups (to DNA) or acetyl groups (to the histone proteins that DNA wraps around). So-called “readers” bind to these marks, thereby influencing gene expression; erasers remove the marks.   In theory epigenetic changes should be reversible, but this is not simple. You may recall in an earlier post about asthma, we learnt that it is very hard to treat former smokers. ...

This blog started life after I read about a clinical trial of the diuretic bumetanide to treat autism.   In the following 12 months the authors of that study, Ben-Ari and Lemmonier, have been busy building up their scientific case.   They published two further papers:-     Treating Fragile X syndrome with the diuretic bumetanide: a case report.   We report that daily administration of the diuretic NKCC1 chloride co-transporter, bumetanide, reduces the severity of autism in a 10-year-old Fragile X boy using CARS, ADOS, ABC, RDEG and RRB before and after treatment. In keeping with extensive clinical use of this diuretic, the only side effect was a small hypokalaemia. A double-blind clinical trial is warranted to test the efficacy of bumetanide in FRX. This single case report showed an improvement of the scores of each test used after 3 months of treatment. Double-blind clinical trials are warranted to test the efficacy of bumetanide in FRX.   Improving emotio...

Source: Peter Research                      Notes   Oxidative stress increases neuro-inflammation Neuro-inflammation increases oxidative stress Both oxidative stress and neuro-inflammation contribute to central hormonal dysfunction, e.g. stress reducing D2 levels that stop T4 converting to T3 in the brain One year after starting my investigation, I thought it would be useful to sum up Classic Autism in a simple form.  I chose a Venn diagram.  At school your kids probably have just  two overlapping circles.  If you have four variables you need to use ellipses.  Where all four variables are in play, is the area where all four ellipses overlap.  This is untreated classic autism.   Once you successfully treat any of the four trouble areas (Neuro-inflammation, oxidative stress, channelopathies and hormonal dysfunction in the brain) you can modi...