Posts

“Autism treatments proposed by clinical studies and human genetics are complementary” & the NSAID Ponstan as a Novel Autism Therapy

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Today’s post was not my idea at all, it was the author of one of the papers who has drawn my attention to the subject. Genetic studies are complicated and are not the sort of thing I would have chosen to read, let alone write about, before starting this blog.  The optimal time to initiate pharmacological  intervention in Autism? However, much of the complex subject matter has now already been covered, step by step, in earlier posts. Regular readers should not feel put off. It is perhaps easier to think about ion channel dysfunctions, or channelopathies.  Some of the key genetic dysfunctions produce these channelopathies.  There are many posts in this blog about channelopathies, partly because many therapies already exist to treat them. Then we have the complex signaling pathways which are often the subject of cancer research, but we have seen that certain ones like RAS and PTEN are key to conditions like some autism and some MR/ID. So it is not a big leap therefore t...

Inflammatory Response to GAS (Group A Strep) and Dysmaturational Syndrome (Tourette’s Syndrome with Autism “Recovery” by 6 Years Old)

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Michele Zappella was Head of the Department of Child Neuropsychiatry  at Siena   Hospital from 1973 to 2006 Today’s post is the one I mentioned some time ago about odd behavioral reactions to Group A Streptococcus.  It does veer off to Italy and Tourette’s Syndrome and the interesting sounding Dysmaturational Syndrome, which probably accounts for many of those autism “recovery” stories that are used to support some pretty odd therapies. Several readers of this blog have noticed that exposure to Group A Streptococcus causes their child’s autism to worsen.  Quotes range from facial grimacing, to raving like a lunatic. Much has been written about the conditions PANDAS and PANS.  The proposed mechanism behind PANDAS/PANS is highly disputed, with some strong evidence showing it not to be valid. What is clear is that in some people, following a strep infection, they change overnight from completely normal to something quite different.  This is the PANDAS/PANS...