Essay On Autism

Several environmental factors have also been suspected of attributing to the cause of autism such as: exposure to infectious disease, heavy metals, phthalates and phenols, pesticides, alcohol, illicit drugs, advanced maternal age, maternal bleeding during pregnancy, maternal medications used during pregnancy and maternal stress (Glasson et al., 2004). The research conducted by Glasson et al., (2004) shows that individuals who were later diagnosed with autism were more likely to have experienced obstetric difficulties during pregnancy, labor, delivery and neonatal period. Advanced maternal age was the strongest finding in that study.

     Autism is a developmental disability that affects all areas of behavior and perception. Approximately 10 out of every 10,000 children are diagnosed with autism and four out of five are males. Autism is the third most common developmental disability, more common than Down Syndrome. Children with Autism are characterized by impairment in several areas of development such as: Cognitive, Language, Play/Socialization skills and exhibit many challenging behaviors. Behavior Patterns of Autism:

Second, in order to further confirm the information about characteristics and function of the targeting protein that we have

Autistic infants often show little or no interest in other people and lack typical social behaviors. For example, they may not smile at their mother's voice or make eye contact with caregivers. Autistic children fail to develop normal relationships with their parents, brothers or sisters, and other children. Often they seem unaware of the needs and feelings of other people, and may not respond if another person is hurt or in distress. They also fail to make friends.

This experiment could have been improved if we had used rats that were genetically engineered or born with a proclivity towards seizures. This way, we could have seen the effects of GABA and melatonin agonists on rats that had organic long-term seizures rather than short-term seizures that were induced artificially by kainic acid. It was found that rats purchased from a group of Crj:Wistar rats from the company Charles River Japan spontaneously exhibited seizures. These rats were then inbred and their seizure susceptibility loci (Ner1 and Ner2) were mapped out on chromosomes 1 and 3.22 Perhaps by using these rats, we can truly mimic seizures that are more closely related to the ones produced

This gene provides information for making a protein that regulates the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) signaling pathway. The TGF-β pathway regulates many processes, including cell growth and proliferation, the process by which cells mature to carry out special functions (differentiation), cell motility, and apoptosis. By attaching to certain proteins , the SKI protein blocks TGF-β signaling. The SKI protein is found in many cell types allover the body and appears to have a role in the development of many tissues, including the skull, other bones, skin, and brain.

McGonigle (2013) studied the development and application of animal models of CNS disorder. The author believed the animal model of CNS disorder explored pathology and molecular mechanism, and assessed the therapeutic utility. McGonigle (2013) also proposed that animal models are essential tools to underlying pathology and found out the potential efficacy of therapeutic intervention. Another example is that Chimpanzees and mice’s DNA that is almost 100 % genetically similar to humans. That high percentage in similarity makes sense due we all are mammals descending from the common ancestors. Humans and animals share the same organs, which they all have the same functions. We also share the same conditions and illness, so that similarity make animal a reliable resources to conduct researches. It also makes animals become a appropriate tool to test drugs for new treatment as well as to improve the once that we have on place (ProCon.org, 2014, p

They also used a western blot test from crude extracts of the phenotypes to test out the effectiveness of the system, they found that in the reverted flox/flox had the same amount of that of +/+. -/- and geo/geo bot mice both died after 3-4 weeks of birth and the flox/flox were observed to be as healthy as the +/+ and through this -/- and geo/geo were known as the mutants (Sato, 2007). The apical proteins were found to be mislocalized to lysosomes and then degraded in the Rab8 knockout mice, this led to malnutrition as there was poor absorption and digestion of the milk and ultimately killing the mice from starvation. This was found through an experiment determining whether abnormalities in the small intestine were the major cause of death by breeding Flox/+ mice with transgenic mice that express Cre recombinase under the Villin promoter. It was observed that all mouse that expressed one floxed allele died at the same time as the mutant mouse whereas mice with two floxed alleles were healthy but died after 12 weeks of birth due to reduced efficiency of Rab8 (Sato, 2007). The healthy two floxed allele mouse showed a mosaic expression of Rab8, the Rab8 negative cells had large sub-apical vacuoles like the knockout mouse however in the Rab8 positive cells there weren’t any vacuoles. The first experiment is different to other experiment; the first experiment was trying to see what happened

Another genetic mutation identified is the ABCA3 mutation. It has been demonstrated that this mutation is more common than SP-B deficiency (Somaschini et al., 2007) This gene encodes the ATP-binding cassette protein A3. The protein is highly

I have decided to do a presentation on the diagnoses and prognoses of a broad disorder. This is Autism Spectrum Disorder and the many levels that are alone in this disorder. The basics of which range from those that are non-verbal, low social and progress up to the high intelligence and low social variant. Classic autism is what most people see as the only form and those visual clues include: nonverbal communication, increased focus and concentration of the individual on a particular object, repetitive movements, such as hand flapping or rocking, even self-harm is an identifying characteristic of classic autism.

A neuroscientist named Carla Schatz is a student from the the University of Stanford who is studying mice. Mice can recover from many injuries and diseases that would normally kill a common animal and person. For example if a mice can not see from one eye they can recover very easily. What sets mice apart are there superior ability to for neural connections or strengthen old ones. In many animals and people are MHCI proteins basically they are protecting your brain from infected cells. Humans need more of these to eventually have brains that are immune from many diseases such as ALS, Alzheimer's, and Schizophrenia. Schatz started that revolution of researching 15 years ago while going through genes coding for

are found to be enriched in the brain, see also Figure 1.1. These enriched genes predominantly

certain genomes that if changed will be the source of proteins that will help in brain function.

Thank to my undergraduate education in biology at the Complutense University of Madrid, I gained a solid background in cell and molecular biology, biomedicine and neurobiology. Afterwards, as a master student, I have increased my academic training in neurosciences at the VU University Amsterdam in a highly international and intellectually challenging environment. Due to my participation in numerous seminars, journal clubs and poster markets, I have developed a strong critical thinking and remarkable communication skills. I have complemented my education with a course in mice handling and safety

Current studies on brain research utilise sophisticated techniques and advanced technologies in laboratory design compared with historical methods in brain research, whilst obeying the 3Rs and Animal Welfare Legislation pertinent to their Country. In a recent study conducted by Klein et al. (2011), they analysed the use of the Brain-derived neurotropic factor (BDNF), an element useful in neural survival, differentiation and synaptic plasticity as a biological marker using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Studies of neuropsychiatric patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), had suggested that BDNF could be used in that respect and would have become a significant breakthrough in the use of animals in brain research. Their findings suggested BDNF levels in whole blood were representative of brain tissue BDNF levels across different species, including the pigs, rats and mice used in the experiment. Mice produced the best correlation in the frontal cortex and the hippocampal BDNF levels (Klein et al., 2011). Accordingly, a limitation of this study is the reliability when determining how these results transfer to patient populations. Albeit, these findings support the use of animals in brain research, especially the advanced laboratory methods like the use of ELISA and biological markers which resulted in less pain and killing of animals.