Brains and breast milk: Research on autistic children’s relatives
December 9, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Autism may so to speak run in the family: Autistic children and their relatives may have similarities in the structure of their brains, a December 8th article, Ped Med: Studies eye autistic kids’ kin, reports.
Researchers have been investigating the structure and anatomy of the brains of autistic children’s parents and siblings. In comparing 3-D images of the brains of 40 parents of autistic children with those of 40 parents of non-autistic children, scientists found size differences in a number of regions of the brain: “a shrunken cerebellum,” “a shriveled prefrontal cortex,” an oversized motor cortex,” “a bloated basal ganglia,” and “an undersized somatosensory cortex.” Another team of researchers studied nine autistic boys, their nine non-autistic brothers, and nine unrelated children who did not have autism; it was found that, in the case of autistic boys and their siblings “the boys had an abnormally small amygdala,” which is the part of the brain that “holds the key to reading facial expressions and experiencing fear at social situations.”
The Ped Med article also reports on a study about woman’s breast milk: Women who have a certain variant of a gene can have up to 40 percent more the amount of docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, an omega-3 fat. A shortage of DHA “has been implicated in autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, learning disabilities and other developmental disorders.”
The Ped Med article describes these three studies in more detail; I would also like to know if the researchers for the two studies investigating the brain structure of autistic children’s relatives also included any observations of the actual behavior of the autistic children and of their relatives, or if the researchers are planning such at a later stage. Regarding the study on breast milk (and for personalized commentary on breastfeeding, please see Breastfeeding123), I would like to ask: What if a child did not nurse but received formula through a bottle? Or (and I do not mean to be alarmist, but am just considering the implications of this study) are non-breast-fed babies more likely candidates for autism? (Charlie nursed for thirteen months.)
Amigo’s blindness is genetic, and his autism may be a twig on the same tree. I have a cousin who is “classic” autistic. Coincidence? Depends on who you ask.
Every time new research is reported, I have too much to think about! More than a few of my relatives of varying ages have AS.
Isn’t DHA one of the things that is already in formulas these days? So shouldn’t forumla fed babies be covered for that particular one?
I’m thinking the genetic one is going to be the strongest influencer. I might be making this up, but aren’t they finding that autism is about 3 times higher than in kids growing up in Silicon Valley and the thinking is that more autistic or autistic like people tend to end up in computer programming type jobs. And, since Silicon Valley has such a heavy programming community that it suggests that the main contributing factor to autism is heredity.
Seems like I read something about that recently.
Isn’t DHA one of the things that is already in formulas these days? So shouldn’t forumla fed babies be covered for that particular one?
sometimes this chemically made things are not readily absorbed by the body…the breastmilk depends on the womans diet…If the woman consumes plenty of essential amino acids contained in flax seeds, soy, some strands in olives, avocados, and certain nuts, seeds and beans, they should have enough DHA that is readily absorbed by the body to the baby…
Hm. Each of my children was breastfed for at least 18 months.
The one who got all the resources to himself is autistic.
The ones who had to share resources, being twins, have been diagnosed with milder autism than their brother.
Is too much holding, breastfeeding and maternal attention the cause of autism? Because if you’re looking for breastfeeding-related causes, that’s the conclusion you come to if you only look at my children.