I Don't Believe that the Welcome Trust, the MRC (UK), and the NLM Foundation Do Not Know that Older Dads are the Major Cause of Sporadic Autism

There is no such thing as autism is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder of unknown etiology because autism is varied and caused by known factors such as high paternal age high age of mother's father at her birth, family history of autoimmune disorders, family history of autism or ASDs, or family history of schizophrenia, or family history of very severe OCD, ADHD, or other mental cognitive and personality disorders. It is interesting that starting in 1994 everyone got into the autism business as soon as the writers of the DSM IV had changed autism's definition.


THE GENETICS OF AUTISM
OVERVIEWAutism is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder of unknown etiology, with profound consequences for affected individuals and their families. Autism is the classical pervasive developmental disorder (PDD); a group of disorders which also includes Asperger’s syndrome, atypical autism, childhood disintegrative disorder, PDD not otherwise specified (PDDNOS) and Rett syndrome. These disorders are classically defined by a combination of qualitative impairments in three principal areas: verbal and non-verbal communication, reciprocal social interaction, and repetitive and stereotyped patterns of interests and activities.

There is now convincing evidence from twin and family studies for the involvement of genetic factors in the development of autism. The absence of any strong consistent evidence for an environmental, biochemical or neuroanatomical cause has led to an increasing number of genetic studies worldwide to determine the basis of this complex disorder.

The International Molecular Genetic Study of Autism Consortium (IMGSAC) was established in 1994 and includes scientific researchers and clinicians from a number of European countries and the United States. We have generated an extensive collection of families with autism, and have led the field using sophisticated technology to examine these families for genes underlying autism susceptibility. Our results so far indicate that there are likely to be several regions involved, on chromosomes 2,7,9,10,16 and 17. We are currently examining candidate genes in the principal regions on chromosomes 2,7 and 16 for genetic variants that may increase the risk of developing autism.

The Consortium is funded in part by project grants from the Medical Research Council (UK), The Wellcome Trust and The NLM Foundation.



IMGSAC takes part in the NAAR Autism Genome Project, a large international collaborative research project using state-of-the-art microarray technology to search for autism susceptibility genes in approximately 1,500 families.



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