Autism: A Whole Body Disorder?

In 1943, a child psychiatrist, Leo Kanner M.D., first described autism. Since then, the "blame" for autistic children that had originally been erroneously placed on parents, particularly mothers, has largely disappeared. But before it did, and with the approval of some experts, mothers of children with autism were accused of being too detached, emotionally cold, leading to the "refrigerator mother theory." You can imagine the awful distress and turmoil this created for mothers, and families, already facing enormous challenges in raising a child with autism.
Research was instrumental in dismissing maternal blame theories. What emerged was a focus on the study of the brain of youth and adults with autism. Genetic tests, brain scans, and clinical medication trials continue to reveal how the autistic brain is different. Autism has entered the mainstream of brain research, like the conditions that often accompany it, such as epilepsy, sleep disorders, movement problems, and many psychiatric disorders.

An Immune Disorder at the Root of Autism

Opinion piece in today's editions of The New York Times by Moises Velasquez-Manoff, author of “An Epidemic of Absence: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases.”

In recent years, scientists have made extraordinary advances in understanding the causes of autism, now estimated to afflict 1 in 88 children. But remarkably little of this understanding has percolated into popular awareness, which often remains fixated on vaccines.

So here’s the short of it: At least a subset of autism — perhaps one-third, and very likely more — looks like a type of inflammatory disease. And it begins in the womb.

It starts with what scientists call immune dysregulation.