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Your genes give you blue eyes.  Your genes give you dark hair.  Your genes, in some cases (no pointing fingers!), also make you fat. But did you know they can determine how many friends you may have?   According to newswise.com, r esearchers have found that the genes that regulate oxytocin, the supreme human social hormone, are associated with the sociality of young individuals. Why some individuals seek social engagement and friendship while others shy away, may well be dependent on the expression and sequence of two genes in their bodies, the web site reports. These genes appear in people who   have more close friends and show greater social skills.The hormone released by these genes in humans are involved in primary social behaviors such as pair-bonding, mating and child-rearing, to more sophisticated behaviors such as empathy, trust and generosity. “We believe that studying the expression of genes captures more information than simple structural studi...

It doesn't explain why Adam Lanza slaughtered 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary almost two years ago to the day, but a new study has found that autism changes the way that people with the disorder see faces. The way people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) gather information – not the judgment process itself – might explain why they gain different perceptions from peoples’ faces, according to a new study from Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies and the University of Montreal, as reported by newswise.com. "The evaluation of an individual's face is a rapid process that influences our future relationship with the individual," said Baudouin Forgeot d'Arc, lead author of the study. "By studying these judgments, we wanted to better understand how people with ASD use facial features as cues. Do they need more cues to be able to make the same judgment?"  When photographic images of neutral faces were presented to two groups, the j...

Have you ever wondered why more boys than girls suffer from autism ? Now experts may have the answer. Blame it on mutations. It takes more mutations to trigger autism in women than in men, which may explain why men are four times more likely to have the disorder, according to a new study as reported at newswise.com. The study found that women with autism or developmental delay tend to have more large disruptions in their genomes than do men with the disorder. Inherited mutations are also more likely to be passed down from unaffected mothers than from fathers. Together, the results suggest that women are resistant to mutations that contribute to autism, the Web site notes. “This strongly argues that females are protected from autism and developmental delay and require more mutational load, or more mutational hits that are severe, in order to push them over the threshold,” newswise quotes lead researcher Evan Eichler, professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington ...

It's something we don't think about much.  After all, we were vaccinated for measles and mumps and chicken pox years and years ago. But a new study  is finding that millions of Americans are not getting vaccinated against whooping cough (which can kill newborns), tetanus, shingles, and other diseases, according to Jennifer Brown at the Denver Post. Just 14 percent of adults 19 and older are vaccinated against tetanus, diphtheria and whooping cough. Only 20 percent age 60 and older received the shingles vaccination, and only about 35 percent of women ages 19 to 26 are immunized against HPV, or human papillomavirus, she writes. The low vaccination rates are leading to outbreaks, CDC officials have said, Brown points out. More than 48,000 cases of whooping cough, for example, were reported in 2012 — more than any other year since 1955. The illness, named after its excessive coughing that ends in a whooping noise, costs far more to treat than the vaccine costs-- $2,000 vs. a...

Could it possibly be true?  Could they have found a cause for autism? A new study could have important implications for ASD detection and prevention. A new study says so.  According to newswise.com, "Problems with a key group of enzymes called topoisomerases can have profound effects on the genetic machinery behind brain development and potentially lead to autism spectrum disorder (ASD)." The Web site attributed the significant advance in the hunt for environmental factors behind autism to scientists at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, who made this finding which lends new insights into the disorder’s genetic causes. "Our study shows the magnitude of what can happen if topoisomerases are impaired,” said senior study author Mark Zylka, PhD, associate professor in the Neuroscience Center and the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology at UNC. “Inhibiting these enzymes has the potential to profoundly affect neurodevelopment — perhaps even more so...

Can there be any more suppositions about why children are born with autism?  Now a new study has found that women low in thyroid hormones "are nearly 4 times likelier to produce autistic children than healthy women," according to newswise.com. As someone who has always struggled with an under-performing thyroid (and take medication for it), this was interesting to me.  I'm not planning on having any more children but did my son really come that close to autism? More than 4,000 Dutch women and their children were studied and "and it supports a growing view that autism spectrum disorders can be caused by a lack of maternal thyroid hormone, which past studies have shown is crucial to the migration of fetal brain cells during embryo development," the Web site said. "It is increasingly apparent to us that autism is caused by environmental factors in most cases, not by genetics," newswise.com quoted lead author Gustavo Román, M.D., a neurologist and n...

First, it was uncaring mothers.  Then it was vaccinations.  Now researchers are saying that inducing labor could possibly lead to autism . According to the AP, " The biggest study of its kind suggests autism might be linked with inducing and speeding up labor, preliminary findings that need investigating since labor is induced in increasing numbers of U.S. women, the authors and other autism experts say." But the article is quick to point out that, l ike most research into autism causes, "The study doesn't provide conclusive answers," and the authors rush to say the results shouldn't lead doctors "to avoid inducing labor or speeding it up since it can be life-saving for mothers and babies." "We haven't found a connection for cause and effect. One of the things we need to look at is why they were being induced in the first place," Simon Gregory, lead author and an associate professor of medicine and medical genetics at Duke Unive...

I used to think there was nothing new under the sun about autism. But today I read that a new screening method may improve the way the disease is diagnosed and tracked in children after age 3.  And it's very unique. According to newswise.com, the new method involves tracking a person’s random movements in real time "with a sophisticated computer program that produces 240 images a second and detects systematic signatures unique to each person." How it differs from the traditional assessment for diagnosing autism is that it now removes the primarily subjective opinions of "a person’s social interaction, deficits in communication, and repetitive and restricted behaviors and interests." In other words, there is now an objective way to test for, and diagnose, autism, providing an earlier, diagnosis by factoring in the importance of changes in movements and movement sensing.  This enables professionals to identify "inherent capabilities in each child,"...

For the longest time, I thought my son was a prodigy. Then I began reading about kids who wrote and passed around newsletters on how truly un-nutritious their cafeteria food really was -- in fourth grade!  And won spelling bees by correctly spelling kneidel (a Hebrew word for matzoh balls but who knew?).  And invented a test for breast cancer (she was in high school, but still). And my son began getting B's. Christie McNicholson reports at smartplanet.com that there's actually a child who spoke his first word at three months (mine's first was "squirrel"  -- go figure!), learned the entire alphabet by eight months, went to college at nine, developed a new form of mathematics and by age 13 had written a research paper accepted by a math journal. Now that's a prodigy.  Apparently there's just one trait shared by all prodigies .  Guess what it is?  Sounds a little too crazy to be true but it's a good working memory, not IQ.  And it's actually one...

What a cool idea.  A German company is looking for people with autism because of the unique way they think. According to Kirsten Korosec, "German software giant SAP has partnered with Specialisterne to help it find, recruit and train people with autism to work as programmers, data quality assurance specialists and product testers." Under the pilot programs, SAP Labs in India hired six people with autism as software testers for SAP Business Suite applications, Korosec reports. "SAP says the team has increased its productivity and cohesiveness as a direct result of the hires. The Ireland pilot is currently in the screening phase for five positions to be filled this year." Korosec notes in her story that Danish company Specialisterne , which is owned by The Specialist People Foundation, "aims to help people with autism find employment by marketing and matching their skill set to companies in the IT sector." Its arrangement with SAP is the first with ...

Not that you don't have enough to fear when your doctor orders an MRI, but now don't go in there thinking he's a jerk for keeping you waiting.  According to a new Cornell study, MRIs can now pick up on what you're thinking. By scanning your brain, it's alleged that doctors can figure out what you think of others.  My mother-in-law comes to mind! David Worthington writes, "Volunteers were asked to consider how specific people might react to situations after studying those individuals’ personality traits. By analyzing the brain activation patterns, researchers were consistently able to recognize which person a volunteer was thinking about." However, it doesn't work on those who have autism or other types of mental illness. Spooky?  You bet.  Worthington adds that MRI technology has "already been deployed in courtrooms as a lie detector, can be used to predict how well someone will learn, and is being used to more accurately map the human b...

It's been a week but none of the horror and heartbreak is over.  Despite many reports that the killer of 20 children in Newtown may have had Asperger's, a form of autism, this illness is not known to spawn violence in its sufferers.  Those in the autism movement fear the syndrome may have been mischaracterized. http://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2012/12/aspergers-syndrome-violence-not-something-we-expect-expert-says