Welcome back to Reading the Research, where I trawl the Internet to find noteworthy research on autism and related subjects, then discuss it in brief with bits from my own life, research, and observations.
Today's article is likely a glimpse into future of medical treatments. We know various conditions, such as depression, have risk factors directly in our genes. These can be flipped on and off by the environment, which has been demonstrated in various studies on identical twins.
The classical example is identical twins separated at birth for some reason. They found each other later in life, having had different lives and family situations. One twin might have developed depression, while the other hadn't, despite being genetically identical. When their genes were studied, they differed slightly despite beginning 100% identically.
A person might have a predisposition to developing depression, but when put in a very healthy environment, may never develop it. In a less healthy environment, they would become depressed. The idea with gene promoters like the kind in this study is, "what if we could turn those depression genes back off?"
The researchers hope to do the same thing with neurological diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. I guarantee the question will come, "what about autism?"
The answer is that autism isn't a single gene, or even a dozen. It's hundreds. And even if you tweaked all of them, the genes aren't really where the difference lies: it's the brain. You can't so easily eugenicize autism out of a person (and that's ignoring the question of whether you should).
What you could do instead, is ease the person's suffering. Reduce that person's susceptibility to gut issues, depression, anxiety, or even epilepsy. The damage done to our genetics by eating junk food full of herbicides and pesticides, breathing stale air pollution, not exercising, and trapping ourselves in sterile cubicles might not be entirely reversible... but gene therapy could help.
The classical example is identical twins separated at birth for some reason. They found each other later in life, having had different lives and family situations. One twin might have developed depression, while the other hadn't, despite being genetically identical. When their genes were studied, they differed slightly despite beginning 100% identically.
A person might have a predisposition to developing depression, but when put in a very healthy environment, may never develop it. In a less healthy environment, they would become depressed. The idea with gene promoters like the kind in this study is, "what if we could turn those depression genes back off?"
The researchers hope to do the same thing with neurological diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. I guarantee the question will come, "what about autism?"
The answer is that autism isn't a single gene, or even a dozen. It's hundreds. And even if you tweaked all of them, the genes aren't really where the difference lies: it's the brain. You can't so easily eugenicize autism out of a person (and that's ignoring the question of whether you should).
What you could do instead, is ease the person's suffering. Reduce that person's susceptibility to gut issues, depression, anxiety, or even epilepsy. The damage done to our genetics by eating junk food full of herbicides and pesticides, breathing stale air pollution, not exercising, and trapping ourselves in sterile cubicles might not be entirely reversible... but gene therapy could help.
(Pst! If you like seeing the latest autism-relevant research, visit my Twitter, which has links and brief comments on studies that were interesting, but didn't get a whole Reading the Research article about them.)
This is so interesting. I knew that genes can be expressed or not depending on circumstances prior to birth (eg. babies born shortly after WWII in the Netherlands had an increased risk of obesity due to being exposed to the Hunger Winter prenatally). I had no idea these genes can be expressed or not later in life too. Thanks for posting.
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