What underlies the documented increase in autism incidence? Results of a new study

Studies from the Center for Disease Control and elsewhere have compellingly documented a rapid increase in the incidence of autism in the United States. WHAT THE HELL IS CAUSING IT? Given the enormous human and societal costs of this malady, few practical scientific questions are more important to we Americans, in our current era. Whether a single or multiple factors, the cause(s) of an increased incidence of autism has to meet three obvious criteria: It has to be widely dispersed in our environment — because autism rate increases are EVERYWHERE, at least in the United States. It must be steadily increasing in its concentration or its power over the past several decades. It must further exacerbate the abnormal brain-development processes that account for autism origin in children who are genetically weakened, but who, without this newly-emergent factor or agent, would not have developed the “full-blown” syndrome, and thereby received the “autism” label. There are very few possible factors or agents that can meet all three of these criteria – including almost all of the possible contributors that have been previously discussed in scientific studies, and described in the popular press. About 17 years ago, I met a UC Davis neuroscientist/toxicologist, Isaac Pessah, who had identified a possible candidate cause. His scientific journey had begun with the study of a toxin isolated from a particular family of sea urchins. As he began to underst...
Source: On the Brain by Dr. Michael Merzenich, Ph.D. - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Autism Origins, Treatments Brain Fitness BrainHQ Childhood Learning Cognitive Impairment in Children Cognitive impairments Language Development Reading and Dyslexia Source Type: blogs