Autism-World

According to the new research of the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, Maternal Antibodies might link to autism. Prenatal Exposure To Maternal Antibodies could cause autistic behaviors like the repetitive behavior, which is a important character of autism.

“Dr. Van de Water’s result implicated maternal immune system factors with at least one form of autism,” said neuroscientist David Amaral, research director of the M.I.N.D. Institute and senior author of the current study. “We wanted to take that important finding a step further and find out if IgG exposure during pregnancy could cause the kinds of changes in social interactions or behavior we see in children with autism.”

Amaral and his research team at the California National Primate Research Center exposed 8 monkeys to human IgG from mothers of children with autism. It turns out that 4 of the monkeys received it with only mild social alterations. “The monkeys’ behavior, however, was notably distinct, since all of them exhibited repetitive activities such as pacing, backflipping, twirling and swinging with much greater frequency and for longer periods of time than other monkeys in the study. “

“This is one of the first studies to identify immunological factors in mothers that could be linked to autism in the very earliest stages of life,” said Judy Van de Water, senior author of the study and professor of rheumatology, allergy and clinical immunology.

“Our results should lead to more research on the prenatal environment and the onset of autism. We are also optimistic that in the future a prenatal test and therapeutic intervention preventing IgG exposure during pregnancy could protect some children from ever getting autism.”

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2008 at 5:35 pm and is filed under Autism research.