Tracing the Origins of Autism: A Spectrum of New Studies

The etiology of a medical condition might seem an unlikely subject to arouse intense feelings. Yet few medical disorders have stirred up as much passion and divisiveness among scientists and the general public as autism has in recent years. The heat of the controversy has even attracted attention from periodicals such as The Wall Street Journal, the Columbia Journalism Review, and Wired magazine—seemingly improbable forums for a medical debate. Why all the furor? At the eye of the storm is the startling climb in the numbers of children who have been diagnosed with one of the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). The most severe ASD is autistic disorder (which often is called simply “autism”); other forms include Asperger syndrome and the much rarer childhood disintegrative disorder. In the United States, the diagnosis of ASDs increased roughly 10-fold over the course of a decade, from 4–5 children per 10,000 in the 1980s to 30–60 children per 10,000 in the 1990s, according to a report in the August 2003 Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. The 5 May 2006 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report describes the results of two parent surveys from 2003 and 2004, which suggested that 55–57 children per 10,000 had autism (however, an editorial note points out that, due to the nature of the surveys, parents of children with other ASDs may have reported their children as having autistic disorder). Some scientists believe that much of the upsurge is the result of increased awareness of ASDs or changes in diagnostic criteria, which would suggest that the true prevalence of the disorders has been stable over time. Others disagree. “It is premature to state that there is no increase in prevalence,” says W. Ian Lipkin, a professor of neurology, anatomy, and neurobiology at Columbia University. “None of the studies to date has been designed to definitively address the issue. ” The prevalence of ASDs plays into the fundamental question of what causes these disorders. If the number of cases is truly on the rise, then it would seem likely that some change in the environment is driving up the total. That’s partly what has divided scientists into opposing camps—they cannot agree on the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors in the disorders’ etiology. Alas, answering the prevalence question might not end that debate. “Even if the prevalence of autism were stable,” says Lipkin, “you would not be able to rule out the possibility of an environmental trigger. ” That’s because very little is known about the mechanisms that cause autism, be they environmental or genetic. “The study of autism was, until recently, largely dominated by the field of psychology, where characterizing the behaviors and developing reliable instruments for diagnosis have been major areas of research over the past few decades,” says Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Davis. Indeed, the core symptoms of ASDs—social disinterest, repetitive and overly focused behavior, and problems in communication, usually appearing before 3 years of age—have been well described. Much less research has focused on the causes of these symptoms. Several investigations dating back to the 1970s indicate that identical twins have a much higher concordance rate of ASDs than fraternal twins, according to a report in the Spring 1998 issue of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews. Those studies provide some of the best evidence that these disorders have a strong genetic component. But the identity of the genes involved, much less how they produce ASDs, has not been established. Moreover, the concordance rate for identical twins is not 100%, which suggests that at least some cases must be associated with environmental or epigenetic factors. A few cases of ASDs have been clearly linked to environmental insults. These include prenatal exposure to chemical agents such as thalidomide and valproic acid, as well as to infectious agents such as the rubella and influenza viruses. Here again, the concordance rate is not 100%, which suggests that a genetic predisposition is necessary for chemical and microbial factors to act as triggers. Tantalizing clues like these are prompting scientists to reconsider the research agenda for ASDs. Martha Herbert, a pediatric neurologist at Harvard Medical School, and her colleagues have been applying the methods of genomics to identify environmentally responsive genes that might be important in these disorders. “When you realize that the widespread changes we’re seeing in autistic brains may occur in parallel with or even downstream from widespread changes in the body—such as in the immune system—and that these changes may be environmentally triggered, you start looking for ways to think more broadly about genetic vulnerability. It can’t be just about ‘brain genes,’” Herbert says. Some new epidemiological studies also are looking for gene–environment interactions. According to Diana Schendel, an epidemiologist and project officer for autism research at the CDC, which funds one of the projects, these initiatives will be able to examine many possible causal pathways to ASDs, including both genetic and environmental causes that may lead to the development of the disorders in different subgroups of children. Some of these projects are already under way, whereas others will begin soon. All of the scientists involved, however, believe their research will finally provide some of the answers that everyone has been looking for.