Talk:Causes of autism

The mGluR theory of fragile X mental retardation

This is a pervasive and extremely important study going on to find a genetically caused molecular reason for autism among other mental retardations. The paper is online and should be brought up, as recovery of normal functioning has also been proven possible in mice.

References

Therazzz (talk) 05:06, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

The first article you supplied is nearly ten years old and the second is a six-year-old primary study in mice, so they're not the kinds of sources we are looking for per WP:MEDRS, but the theory does seem to have some support in secondary sources, see for example PMID 22860169 (although that may not be the best one). Secondary sources do indicate that the Fragile X theory seems to have become the most important genetic theory for a cause. The Fragile X theory is discussed at Autism but is not mentioned here. Discussion of the Fragile X theory should definitely be added here generally, probably mGluR in particular too. Zad68 18:22, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

It's very important to understand there are hundreds of genes linked to autism. Fragile X is not an alternative to those hundreds of other genetic causes, it's just more common than most of them. But I agree it is very much worth mentioning. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.133.172 (talk) 00:49, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Postnatal causes - are these even needed?

Most of the "causes" listed in this section have been wholly discredited (leaky gut, mercury and vaccines to name a few). This section just seems like a catalog of speculative proposals, rather than actual causes. Is it worth keeping something like fridge mom in an article about the causes of autism even though it isn't a cause of autism? ComfyKem (talk) 15:48, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure leaky gut is completely discredited, I attended a recent lecture by Paul Patterson of Caltech who reported findings which seemed to hint at some gut issues in some autism cases. But it's true this article is full of very far out theories with little support.

IMO, the article should clearly explain there are thought to be at least around 300 genes involved, maybe more, that any one single gene only seems to account for 2% of cases at most, but that non-genetic causes are also very important in some cases. Epigenetics, SNPs, CNVs, and prenatal effects all should be explained in layman's terms.

Above all, that "autism" is kind of a catchall term that is only defined by fitting a very broad behavioral phenotype. It's like asking the cause for tallness.

A total rewrite is in order to have a good article but ???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.133.172 (talk) 01:02, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I saw the request at WT:MED for other opinions. IMO these ideas should be addressed on this page. It might be appropriate to split some of them into an "Previous ideas" section. It would be odd for something like Refrigerator mother to not get even a paragraph, even though it is not considered relevant now.

Also, speaking or the refrigerator mother idea, I was just reading a few days ago that Kanner(?) didn't originally propose that parental behavior caused autism, only that the parents tended to be cold in their personal interactions. His original idea was essentially that the parents had (mild) autism themselves and that it was therefore hereditary, not that their "bad" behavior caused autism to appear in a child who would have been healthy if raised by warm, expressive people. So our summary here might be a bit oversimplified. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:37, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

I do think that they are useful specially since they will be re-added at some point or other if eliminated, however what I think is missing is is sentence in most of them indicating that are minority or even fringe views largely discredited by scientific data, instead the many lines saying "more studies are needed". --Garrondo (talk) 19:59, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

There are a few articles included in the CiteULike Autism research paper sharing library that discuss Autism and gastro-intestinal GI issues and use the GI tag dolfrog (talk) 19:58, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Review paper in JAMA

http://archneur.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1182176 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.133.172 (talk) 01:42, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Quote from paper linked above:

Observed in approximately 10% to 12% of mothers of children with autism, this antibody reactivity is thus one of the most prevalent biomarkers for autism discovered to date. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.133.172 (talk) 01:49, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Another quote:

Interestingly, a recent report6 indicates a higher than previously reported concordance among dizygotic twins, resulting in a best-fit model determination of AU risk that attributes a 55% contribution of environmental factors and a 37% contribution of genetic factors. Risk for developing the broader diagnosis of ASD was found to have a nearly identical distribution.

Although the authors do not strictly endorse the view of the original researchers they mention it in a context that implies belief. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.133.172 (talk) 01:55, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

You may find more research papers, and review papers included in the CiteULike "Autism" Group research paper sharing library, which has some 500 or more articles. http://www.citeulike.org/group/12599 dolfrog (talk) 15:20, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Maternal Antibody Related Autism

An article in Time Magazine mentions Maternal Antibody Related Autism as a possible cause of about 1/4 of cases.

Inclusion in this article is clearly warranted. It passes all the medical article rules. Not the TIME article, but the topic, supported by review papers in peer reviewed journals and such.

Someone removed my edit mentioning it.

At this point, resistance to this is basically anti intellectual, bad faith, and quite contrary to what Wikipedia is supposed to be about — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.133.90 (talk) 17:29, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Note this IP editor was the subject of an ANI discussion found at WP:ANI_AUTISM_IP in which it was found the editor has been engaging in a long history of disruption of Wikipedia autism articles, specifically in promoting the "maternal antibodies" theory. As a result of that discussion, anyone who finds their edits disruptive may revert them without comment. Zad68 17:48, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

"Autism is associated with prenatal maternal infection with rubella virus or cytomegalovirus."

The text "Autism is associated with prenatal maternal infection with rubella virus or cytomegalovirus. Clostridia bacteria species are associated with autism (these bacteria are present in greater numbers in the guts of autistic children)." is on the List_of_human_diseases_associated_with_infectious_pathogens currently, and I just want to make sure that the sources being used for that statement are correct, and if so should they be present also here? —Soap— 21:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

That is a single study, and not a review. It seems to me that we would need a secondary review to meet WP:MEDRS to include it here, and frankly it ought to be deleted there. Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:15, 15 July 2013 (UTC)