The bad news: there are lots more autistics out there than we thought, because the kids with mild versions of this disease often slip through the cracks. The good news: most of them (in Utah, anyway) are functioning just fine as adults. And “Rain Man” savant type skills, such as astounding memory, perfect pitch or the ability to multiply very high numbers together, may be much more common among autistics than previously thought as well.
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Researchers think that brain disorders such as autism and schizophrenia are the result of a clash of incompatible genes between the mother and the father.
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This theory is based on a comparison of autism with the weather records from three West Coast states: California, Oregon and Washington State. Researchers found that rates of autism were higher in children who lived in states where it rained a lot during their first 3 years.
How can this be? Since we suspect that autism is caused by a reaction to heavy metals in genetically susceptible infants, perhaps rain causes this type of pollution (often from power plants) to be brought closer to the ground, where it can be breathed in by infants and pregnant mothers.
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Our brains are constantly trying to stay in balance?between too much and too little nerve activity. When they become unbalanced, this leads to disorders like schizophrenia and autism. If we could just find that neuron “switch,” maybe we could turn it off.
In the Scientific American website, Susannah F. Locke quotes neurobiologist Michael Greenberg as saying, “Nobody has [found] a gene that controls the process in quite that way before.” But he thinks HE has: a gene called Npas4.
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