New study makes hope for autistic people

Study: New hope for autistics

02/10/2014

So far, autism is considered not causally curable. A new study gives reason to hope that this could change soon. In animal experiments have been achieved with the long-known drug bumetanide good results.

Dehydrating agent bumetanide

Dehydrating agent bumetanide
Autism is so far regarded as not causally treatable. Perhaps this could change in the future with the help of the long-established drug bumetanide. Doctors usually prescribe this ingredient as a dehydrator. But as reported by Roman Tyzio, Yehezkel Ben-Ari and colleagues from the research institute Inmed in Marseille, France, in the journal "Science", the drug in animal experiments could prevent a misguided social behavior that resembles that in human autism.

Autism is not curable so far
Autism is mostly described as a congenital, incurable perception and information processing disorder of the brain. Symptoms and individual manifestations of the disorder can range from mild behavioral problems that are barely noticeable to severe mental disabilities. Common to all autistic disabilities is an impairment of social behavior. So there are difficulties to talk to other people, to correctly interpret what has been said, to use and understand facial expressions and body language. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), autism is one of the most profound neurological developmental disorders. Estimates suggest that autism, depending on its severity, occurs at a frequency of one in 100 to one in 1,000 in the population.

Overly fearful animals avoided the contacts
The French scientists have now injected bumetanide into pregnant mice and rats, which showed autistic symptoms due to genetic defects and inherited. The injections caused that the offspring of the animals, who noticed by Überängstlichkeit and contacts avoided, was permanently protected against such abnormalities. As the study said, none of the kittens showed any autistic symptoms.

Study with autistic children
"For ethical reasons, it is not possible to use the remedy as in human experiments," the researchers said. However, Yehezkel Ben-Ari and colleagues published an article in the journal "Translational Psychiatry" at the end of 2012 in which they reported on the results of a clinical study with autistic children who had been treated with bumetanide. The symptoms of the neurological disorder could be alleviated by the remedy so much that the children withdrew less and appeared "more present" to the parents. Scientists believe that this is due to the ability of the drug to positively affect the balance of nerve activity in the brain.

Children more open to communication
In total, 60 children between the ages of three and eleven, all suffering from some form of autism, were included in the study. The children were randomly divided into two equal groups. One received a milligram of bumetanide daily for three months and the other group a simul- taneous-looking dummy drug. Thus, it should be ensured that the effects achieved with the drug are comparable and not subject to a subjective rating. Among the children in the group who received the drug, there was an improvement in symptoms by almost ten percent, rated on an international scale for the severity of autism. The affected children were less withdrawn and were more open to communication. "Although we have not been able to achieve complete healing, the remedy has reduced the severity of autistic disorders in most children. According to the parents, their children are now more 'present', "says research director Yehezkel Ben-Ari.

Valium acts as a stimulant
The nerve messenger GABA, which normally calms down overactive nerve cells, is at the center of the work. This messenger substance, which is widely distributed in the brain, ensures a balance between stimulation and damping of the nerve signals. The scientists suspect that this central mechanism is out of balance in autism patients, leading to a preponderance of stimulating impulses. The results of the group led by Eric Lemonnier from the Center de Resssources Autisme de Bretagne in Brest have led them on this track. This researcher investigated the paradoxical effects of Valium in autistic children. This sleeping aid would have had no calming effect on the patients, but on the contrary acted like a stimulant for them.

Autists do not make enough "cuddly hormones"
The Inmed scientists had the idea that a means that flooded the salt component from the nervous system, dampen the pathological excitement in the nerve cells and so could at least mitigate the symptoms of autism. The mechanism is already effective in the development of the fetus in the womb, as the current study results show. In animal experiments, the manifestation of the neurological disorder was completely prevented. As the Inmed researchers have now confirmed, the hormone oxytocin released by the female organism during pregnancy also plays an important role. It has long been known that people suffering from autism do not produce enough oxytocin. This factor, also known as the "cuddle hormone", ensures the mother's intensive attachment and caring attention, but at the same time is a neurotransmitter.

Hope for drug against autism
This acts as a switch in the brain of the developing offspring, which regulates the balance between excitatory and inhibitory nerve impulses. "In the case of autism, this switch is not pronounced," said the researchers. However, not all effects of the hormone and neurotransmitter have been researched yet. Further investigations are needed to elucidate possible connections between pregnancy complications, cesarean births and the increasing autism diagnoses in recent years, say the Inmed researchers. The scientists would also understand thanks to the mouse studies, the causes of the developmental disorder. And this gives hope that in the foreseeable future, a drug against autism can be found. (Sb)

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