How to Identify and Understand Autism Research
Sifting through scientific and medical autism spectrum disorder studies can be very overwhelming. The Autism Research Institute (ARI) understands this feeling and has recently published a helpful guide for caregivers to interpret and assess research.
Finch Therapeutics Raises $90 Million for Microbiome Medication
Finch Therapeutics Group has raised $90 million to push its oral microbiome drug to treat recurrent C. difficile infection toward a regulatory submission with the FDA. The money raised will also be used to initiate a Phase 1b study evaluating a similar drug for autism spectrum disorder, as well as to advance treatments for chronic hepatitis B infection, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.
Sensory Processing Difficulties Related to Executive and Cognitive Dysfunction in Children with Autism
By comparing a group of children with autism (n = 40) to a group of neurotypical children (n = 40), Spanish researchers established that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have more sensory processing difficulties than the comparison group of children. The ASD children’s sensory challenges negatively affected their executive and cognitive functioning, especially in the areas of inhibitory control, auditory sustained attention, and short-term verbal memory.
Michigan Autism Organization Sets Lofty 10-Year Employment Goal
The Autism Alliance of Michigan (AAoM), a non-profit organization whose mission is to raise expectations and expand opportunities for people touched by autism across their lifespan, has just set an extraordinary goal of creating 101,000 jobs for adults on the spectrum over the next ten years.
Researchers Begin Mission to Lower Age of Autism Diagnosis for African American Children
Earlier this month, SafeMinds Shares covered a disturbing news story which reported that obtaining an autism diagnosis takes longer for African American Children. In order to make this startling fact a thing of the past, a research team out of Washington University in St. Louis, using a long-standing grant from the State of Missouri, is evaluating at-risk Black children at their Autism Clinical Center.
Lower Levels of Serotonin Transporters Found in Brains of Individuals with ASD
Scientists from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published a paper last month in Molecular Psychiatry which shows that people with autism have lower levels of a protein which regulates the amount of serotonin in the brain.
