New ideas on Autism, or, Inflammation Really Stinks

Kevin has some interesting news on possible causes of Autism here.
I said some of this in his comments, but this is a little more coherent.

What can I say? It looks promising. We know that in utero exposure to the inflammatory response (specifically, a group of inflammation-related molecules known as cytokines) is associated with increased risk of developing schizophrenia, and that there may be some functional similarities between autistic brains and schizophrenic brains. Not that autistics are schizophrenics, or vice versa, but rather that their brains display some of the same alterations and respond to some of the same medications.

But one big caveat: this is new. NEW. There's not a lot of corroboration in the literature yet. I would hate to see such promising research get lost in the din created by hyperexcitable parents searching a cure or a cause. Remember vaccinations? That was shown to be WRONG (K. M. Madsen ET AL., Pediatrics 112, 604 (2003) and L. Smeeth ET AL., Lancet. 2004 Sep 11;364(9438):963-9.)

Interestingly, on the Johns Hopkins webpage discussing this research, one of the researchers says that he was influenced to do this study because a larger than expected percentage of moms in his clinic were Rheumatoid Arthritis patients, and later he discovered high rates of auto-immune diseases in many of his patients' families. For those of you unfamiliar with RA, it's an auto-immune disease characterized by chronic inflammation of the synovium (joint lining) and eventually destruction of the joints. A better description is found here, courtesy of the nice folks at the Arthritis Foundation.

RA sucks. Let me tell you firsthand (pun intended). It doesn't need any more reasons to be a rotten thing to have.