From The Conversation: “New autism research on single neurons suggests signaling problems in brain circuits”

From The Conversation

Artist impression of neurons communicating in the brain. whitehoune/Shutterstock.com

May 17, 2019
Dmitry Velmeshev

Autism affects at least 2% of children in the United States – an estimated 1 in 59. This is challenging for both the patients and their parents or caregivers. What’s worse is that today there is no medical treatment for autism. That is in large part because we still don’t fully understand how autism develops and alters normal brain function.

One of the main reasons it is hard to decipher the processes that cause the disease is that it is highly variable. So how do we understand how autism changes the brain?

Using a new technology called single-nucleus RNA sequencing, we analyzed the chemistry inside specific brain cells from both healthy people and those with autism and identified dramatic differences that may cause this disease. These autism-specific differences could provide valuable new targets for drug development.

I am a neuroscientist in the lab of Arnold Kreigstein, a researcher of human brain development at the University of California, San Francisco. Since I was a teenager, I have been fascinated by the human brain and computers and the similarities between the two. The computer works by directing a flow of information through interconnected electronic elements called transistors. Wiring together many of these small elements creates a complex machine capable of functions from processing a credit card payment to autopiloting a rocket ship. Though it is an oversimplification, the human brain is, in many respects, like a computer. It has connected cells called neurons that process and direct information flow – a process called synaptic transmission in which one neuron sends a signal to another.

When I started doing science professionally, I realized that many diseases of the human brain are due to specific types of neurons malfunctioning, just like a transistor on a circuit board can malfunction either because it was not manufactured properly or due to wear and tear.

RNA messages in the cell drive function

Every cell in any living organism is made of the same types of biological molecules. Molecules called proteins create cellular structures, catalyze chemical reactions and perform other functions within the cell.

Two related types of molecules – DNA and RNA – are made of sequences of just four basic elements and used by the cell to store information. DNA is used for hereditary long-term information storage; RNA is a short-lived message that signals how active a gene is and how much of a particular protein the cell needs to make. By counting the number of RNA molecules carrying the same message, researchers can get insights into the processes happening inside the cell.

When it comes to the brain, scientists can measure RNA inside individual cells, identify the type of brain cell and and analyze the processes taking place inside it – for instance, synaptic transmission. By comparing RNA analyses of brain cells from healthy people not diagnosed with any brain disease with those done in patients with autism, researchers like myself can figure out which processes are different and in which cells.

Until recently, however, simultaneously measuring all RNA molecules in a single cell was not possible. Researchers could perform these analyses only from a piece of brain tissue containing millions of different cells. This was complicated further because it was possible to collect these tissue samples only from patients who have already died.

New tech pinpoints neurons affected in autism

However, recent advances in technology allowed our team to measure RNA that is contained within the nucleus of a single brain cell. The nucleus of a cell contains the genome, as well as newly synthesized RNA molecules. This structure remains intact ever after the death of a cell and thus can be isolated from dead (also called postmortem) brain tissue.

Neurons in the upper (left) and deep layers of the human developing cortex. Chen & Kriegstein, 2015 Science/American Association for the Advancement of Science, CC BY-SA

By analyzing single cellular nuclei from this postmortem brain of people with and without autism, we profiled the RNA within 100,000 single brain cells of many such individuals.

Comparing RNA in specific types of brain cells between the individuals with and without autism, we found that some specific cell types are more altered than others in the disease.

In particular, we found [Science]that certain neurons called upper-layer cortical neurons that exchange information between different regions of the cerebral cortex have an abnormal number of RNA-encoding proteins located at the synapse – the points of contacts between neurons where signals are transmitted from one nerve cell to another. These changes were detected in regions of the cortex vital for higher-order cognitive functions, such as social interactions.

This suggests that synapses in these upper-layer neurons are malfunctioning, leading to changes in brain functions. In our study, we showed that upper-layer neurons had very different quantities of certain RNA compared to the same cells in healthy people. That was especially true in autism patients who suffered from the most severe symptoms, like not being able to speak.

New results suggest that the synapse formed by neurons in the upper layers of the cerebral cortex are not functioning correctly. CI Photos/Shutterstock.com

Glial cells are also affected in autism

In addition to neurons that are directly responsible for synaptic communication, we also saw changes in the RNA of other non-neuronal cells – called glia. Glia play important roles in regulating the behavior of neurons, including how they send and receive messages via the synapse. These may also play an important role in causing autism.

So what do these findings mean for future medical treatment of autism?

From these results, I and my colleagues understand that the same parts of the synaptic machinery which are critical for sending signals and transmitting information in the upper-layer neurons might be broken in many autism patients, leading to abnormal brain function.

If we can repair these parts, or fine-tune neuronal function to a near-normal state, it might offer dramatic relief of symptoms for the patients. Studies are underway to deliver drugs and gene therapy to specific cell types in the brain, and many scientists including myself believe such approaches will be indispensable for future treatments of autism.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Conversation launched as a pilot project in October 2014. It is an independent source of news and views from the academic and research community, delivered direct to the public.
Our team of professional editors work with university and research institute experts to unlock their knowledge for use by the wider public.
Access to independent, high quality, authenticated, explanatory journalism underpins a functioning democracy. Our aim is to promote better understanding of current affairs and complex issues. And hopefully allow for a better quality of public discourse and conversation.

From Stanford University – Medicine: “Hormone reduces social impairment in kids with autism”

From Stanford University – Medicine

May 1, 2019

Erin Digitale
digitale@stanford.edu

In a Stanford study of 30 children with autism, intranasal vasopressin improved social skills more than a placebo, suggesting that the hormone may treat core features of the disorder.

Opposite approaches to altering the activity of vasopressin in the brain improved some social deficits in people with autism.
Drotyk Roman/shutterstock.com

A pilot study led by Antonio Hardan and Karen Parker found that social behavior in children with autism improved after they inhaled a hormone called vasopressin.
Steve Fisch

Social behavior improved in children with autism after they inhaled a hormone called vasopressin, a pilot study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine has found. It is the first study to test intranasal vasopressin for any indication in children.

Although small, the placebo-controlled study of 30 children provides early evidence that vasopressin may reduce social impairments in the developmental disorder, which affects 1 in 59 U.S. children. The findings were published online May 1 in Science.

“Social deficits are one of the core features of autism and a challenging area for many kids with the disorder,” said the study’s lead author, Karen Parker, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford. “Some of these kids want to socially connect but aren’t capable of doing so.”

The other core features of autism are poor verbal communication skills and restricted, repetitive behaviors. No existing medications address any core features of the disorder.

In the trial, parents’ and experts’ ratings of social behavior improved more in children treated with vasopressin than in those given a placebo. Vasopressin-treated children also experienced some reductions in anxiety and repetitive behaviors.

“We saw this across multiple measures independently,” Parker said. “It is really exciting.”

“We might finally have an agent that will target these core features that are very hard to treat,” said the study’s senior author, Antonio Hardan, MD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford. The researchers are now testing vasopressin in 100 additional children with autism to see if the pilot findings can be repeated.

“Before getting too excited, I want us to replicate this, and more importantly I want others to replicate our findings,” added Hardan, who is also director of the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. Large trials are also needed to assure the drug’s safety.
Sex-specific social hormones

Vasopressin is a tiny protein hormone, nine amino acids long, manufactured in the hypothalamus. It differs by two amino acids from oxytocin, another hormone made in the same part of the brain.

Although both hormones play roles in social behavior, there are sex differences in their activity. Parker’s early research in animal models showed that, in males, vasopressin influences pair-bonding and fathering behavior. Oxytocin regulates aspects of childbirth and certain maternal behaviors, such as milk letdown during nursing.

Oxytocin has been tested as an autism treatment with mixed results; Parker and Hardan previously showed that among autistic children whose oxytocin levels were low to begin with, giving that hormone improved aspects of social behavior. However, many children with autism do not have low oxytocin levels.

Vasopressin’s social effects in males made the researchers wonder if this hormone influences autism. The disorder is male-biased, with 4 or 5 males affected for every female.

Parker and Hardan have previously shown that, compared with typically developing children, those with autism have lower vasopressin levels in their cerebrospinal fluid, which bathes the brain and spinal cord. Among children with autism, those with the lowest CSF vasopressin levels also have the lowest social functioning, the researchers have shown.

Dosing with vasopressin

The Stanford team recruited 30 children with autism, all of whom were 6 to 12 years old and had an IQ of at least 50. The participants were randomly assigned, in a double-blind fashion, to receive intranasal vasopressin or a placebo. Participants took daily doses of their assigned medication for four weeks.

At the beginning and end of the trial, several measurements were used to assess autism symptoms. Participants’ parents completed questionnaires rating their children’s social abilities. In the lab, the researchers tested participants’ ability to recognize emotional states in images of people’s eyes or facial expressions. Children’s repetitive behaviors and anxiety levels were also measured. The researchers also completed physical and clinical chemistry measurements to evaluate the safety of the treatment.

Children’s social abilities improved more after vasopressin than placebo, according to the parents’ and researchers’ observations, as did children’s performance on objective lab tests of social abilities. Vasopressin also reduced anxiety symptoms.

The changes in social ability and anxiety were greatest among children whose vasopressin levels were highest at the beginning of the study, a finding that surprised the researchers, given that their prior work had showed the lowest social abilities in children with the lowest vasopressin levels.

In addition, among children with the highest vasopressin at baseline, vasopressin treatment reduced restricted and repetitive behaviors. This finding did not extend to participants with lower baseline vasopressin.

The findings will guide larger trials of vasopressin. “Identifying who responds and why is really important,” Parker said. Because autism exists on a spectrum, with some people more severely affected than others, treatments must be individualized, she said.

If the findings of the pilot trial are replicated, it will also be important to validate the safety of the hormone in large populations and to understand which aspects of social behavior are most improved by vasopressin, Hardan added. “Is it motivation, affiliation, attachment? Ability to understand others’ mental states or read facial expressions or body language?” he said. “This has opened up a lot of possibilities for individuals with autism.”

Other Stanford co-authors of the study are research scientist Ozge Oztan, PhD; clinical research coordinator Robin Libove; former life sciences researcher Noreen Mohsin; research scientist Debra Karhson, PhD; former assistant clinical research coordinator Raena Sumiyoshi; incoming medical resident Jacqueline Summers; Kyle Hinman, MD, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences; Kara Motonaga, MD, clinical associate professor of pediatrics; Jennifer Phillips, PhD, clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences; former postdoctoral scholar Dean Carson, PhD; Lawrence Fung, MD, PhD, clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences; and Joseph Garner, DPhil, associate professor of comparative medicine.

Parker, Hardan, Fung and Garner are members of the Stanford Maternal & Child Health Research Institute. Parker, Hardan and Garner are also members of Stanford Bio-X and the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford. Garner is a faculty fellow of Stanford ChEM-H.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grants R21MH100387, R21HD083629, R01HD091972, K08MH111750 and T32MH019908), Autism Speaks, a Bass Society Pediatric Fellowship, the Mosbacher Family Fund for Autism Research, the Teresa and Charles Michael Endowed Fund for Autism Research and Education, the Stanford Maternal & Child Health Research Institute and the Yani Calmidis Memorial Fund for Autism Research.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Stanford Medicine integrates research, medical education and health care at its three institutions – Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Health Care (formerly Stanford Hospital & Clinics), and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. For more information, please visit the Office of Communication & Public Affairs site at http://mednews.stanford.edu.

Stanford University campus. No image credit

Stanford University

Leland and Jane Stanford founded the University to “promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization.” Stanford opened its doors in 1891, and more than a century later, it remains dedicated to finding solutions to the great challenges of the day and to preparing our students for leadership in today’s complex world. Stanford, is an American private research university located in Stanford, California on an 8,180-acre (3,310 ha) campus near Palo Alto. Since 1952, more than 54 Stanford faculty, staff, and alumni have won the Nobel Prize, including 19 current faculty members

From Stanford University Engineering: “Dennis Wall: The changing face of autism diagnosis and treatment”

From Stanford University Engineering

April 02, 2019

This article is part of the series: The Future of Everything

AI is reshaping diagnosis of autism, making it quicker, less expensive and more accurate. As a result, interventions are coming earlier in life, a key to more effective treatment.

An app developed by Wall could help children with autism learn to understand facial expressions. | iStock/Joan Vincent Cantó Roig

The current process for diagnosing autism requires no less than 10 hours of intensive doctor-to-patient observation.

It is expensive and time-consuming, says autism expert Dennis Wall, an associate professor of pediatrics and of biomedical data science at Stanford. Wall is developing new ways to tackle the problem.

He says advances in machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence focused on training computers to perform important medical tasks, stand to shake up the field. He’s developing computer models that can spot autism by watching just a few minutes of video of a child at play in their natural home environment.

With these technologies, diagnosis happens in as little as four minutes. In addition, Wall says, scoring can be done by non-experts, rather than highly trained psychiatrists, lowering the costs further. He thinks such AI models could reduce bottlenecks and get kids with autism into treatment sooner, a key to maximizing the treatment’s effect.

Beyond diagnosis, Wall says that digital technologies together with AI are also changing therapeutics. For example, he’s developing augmented reality applications, one for Google Glass, that can help autistic kids better recognize and learn emotional cues – anger, joy, sadness – in the faces of others, a particular challenge for those with autism. Another that goes beyond the wearable form factor to even more ubiquitous technologies – your phone – is an app that can teach social skills through fun but poignant AI-enabled games, such as charades, where imitation advances the child’s social skills as the AI engine tracks progress automatically.

Join host Russ Altman and autism expert Dennis Wall for a peek into the rapidly changing world of autism diagnosis and treatment. You can listen to the Future of Everything on Sirius XM Insight Channel 121, iTunes, SoundCloud and Stanford Engineering Magazine.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Stanford University

Leland and Jane Stanford founded the University to “promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization.” Stanford opened its doors in 1891, and more than a century later, it remains dedicated to finding solutions to the great challenges of the day and to preparing our students for leadership in today’s complex world. Stanford, is an American private research university located in Stanford, California on an 8,180-acre (3,310 ha) campus near Palo Alto. Since 1952, more than 54 Stanford faculty, staff, and alumni have won the Nobel Prize, including 19 current faculty members

From Curtin University: “Autism Open Day aims to create ‘a better future’ for people on the spectrum”

From Curtin University

18 March 2019

Lauren Sydoruk
Media Consultant
Tel: +61 8 9266 4241
Mob: +61 401 103 373
lauren.sydoruk@curtin.edu.au

Yasmine Phillips
Media Relations Manager, Public Relations
Tel: +61 8 9266 9085
Mob: +61 401 103 877
yasmine.phillips@curtin.edu.au

Researchers from Curtin University and the Telethon Kids Institute will explore the strengths and skills that can help build a better future for people living on the spectrum at this year’s Autism Open Day.

Adults and children with autism, their families and the wider community are invited to attend the free annual event, which will include presentations from autistic adults and information on current research and programs aiming to support people with autism.

Autism Open Day will mark the start of Curtin’s Research Rumble, a series of events that promote the innovative research projects being undertaken at Curtin University, from March 24 to 27.

Curtin Autism Research Group (CARG) Director Professor Sonya Girdler, from the School of Occupational Therapy, Social Work and Speech Pathology at Curtin University, said only 42 per cent of Australian adults with autism participate in employment, compared to 53 per cent with other disabilities and 83 per cent without disabilities.

“People with autism possess unique skills and qualities that include being punctual, having high attention to detail and a high tolerance for repetitive tasks, and these skills can be beneficial to many employers, especially in the technology and software development industries,” Professor Girdler said.

“It is essential to prepare and mentor young adults with autism throughout their education to ensure they are ready to tackle the workforce. Employers can play an important role in supporting autistic people in work environments, making small changes to the workplace and tailoring job descriptions to match an autistic individual’s skill set and strengths.

“Australia has historically performed poorly in creating employment opportunities for autistic individuals compared to other nations, but the combined work of researchers, employers, the autistic and the wider community is working to improve that and create a brighter future for people on the spectrum.”

Professor Girdler explained that Autism Open Day offered a great opportunity for people with autism and their families to exchange knowledge and experiences in a safe environment.

“Members of the public attending this year’s Autism Open Day will have access to a range of important information about pathway planning for school leavers with autism, quality of life tips for adults with autism, medication use amongst adults with autism, the transition to school, and peer-mentoring programs for university students with autism,” Professor Girdler said.

Autism Open Day will be held in the Technology Park Function Centre, 2 Brodie Hall Drive, Bentley, on Sunday, 24 March, from 10am to 3pm. Further information can be found online here.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Curtin University (formerly known as Curtin University of Technology and Western Australian Institute of Technology) is an Australian public research university based in Bentley and Perth, Western Australia. The university is named after the 14th Prime Minister of Australia, John Curtin, and is the largest university in Western Australia, with over 58,000 students (as of 2016).

Curtin was conferred university status after legislation was passed by the Parliament of Western Australia in 1986. Since then, the university has been expanding its presence and has campuses in Singapore, Malaysia, Dubai and Mauritius. It has ties with 90 exchange universities in 20 countries. The University comprises five main faculties with over 95 specialists centres. The University formerly had a Sydney campus between 2005 & 2016. On 17 September 2015, Curtin University Council made a decision to close its Sydney campus by early 2017.

Curtin University is a member of Australian Technology Network (ATN), and is active in research in a range of academic and practical fields, including Resources and Energy (e.g., petroleum gas), Information and Communication, Health, Ageing and Well-being (Public Health), Communities and Changing Environments, Growth and Prosperity and Creative Writing.

It is the only Western Australian university to produce a PhD recipient of the AINSE gold medal, which is the highest recognition for PhD-level research excellence in Australia and New Zealand.

Curtin has become active in research and partnerships overseas, particularly in mainland China. It is involved in a number of business, management, and research projects, particularly in supercomputing, where the university participates in a tri-continental array with nodes in Perth, Beijing, and Edinburgh. Western Australia has become an important exporter of minerals, petroleum and natural gas. The Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited the Woodside-funded hydrocarbon research facility during his visit to Australia in 2005.
Contents

From Stanford University: “Stanford researchers develop a smartphone app to simultaneously treat and track autism”

From Stanford University

March 6, 2019
Nathan Collins

A smartphone app that could help diagnose autism uses a game to encourage kids to act out concepts such as being an artist or the feeling of being surprised. The app takes video of the kids at play to analyze and detect indicators of autism. (Image credit: Courtesy Wall Lab)

Diagnosing autism can take half a day or more of clinical observation, and that’s the quick part – often, families wait years just to get to that point. Now, in hopes of speeding things up, Stanford researchers are developing a smartphone app that could drastically reduce the time it takes to get a diagnosis.

The heart of the app, called GuessWhat, is a game that encourages kids to act out concepts such as playing baseball or the feeling of being happy. But just as important, says creator Dennis Wall, an associate professor of pediatrics and of biomedical data science, is the fact that the app takes video of kids at play – video that preliminary work suggests can be analyzed to figure out if kids have autism.

With help from a Neuroscience:Translate seed grant from the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Wall, James Landay, a professor of computer science, and colleagues are expanding GuessWhat’s capabilities as not just a diagnostic tool but perhaps a therapeutic one as well.

“Children are missing an opportunity” to get help with autism, Wall said, and if the project is successful, it will “address a critical need in the diagnosis of autism.”

Charades as diagnostic tool

The original idea for GuessWhat, Wall said, came to him while playing a smartphone-based version of charades. In that game, players hold a phone on their foreheads, screen facing out, so that others can see a cue – a picture of an astronaut, for example – and try to guess that cue from what their friends act out.

Wall realized that by getting kids to act out a variety of different concepts – astronauts and the like, but also emotions or social situations – he might be able to capture video of children and use machine learning algorithms on that video to determine the probability any one child had autism. That, Wall said, could be useful both for diagnosis and for tracking developmental progress. And for parents, it could be done relatively quickly and without having to wait years for a visit to a specialized clinic.

“I thought if we could do something like this for autism, if could be really powerful,” Wall said.

Here’s how it currently works. After parents or other adults open the app and sign in, they hold the phone up to their foreheads, screen facing out so a kid can see it. The screen then displays an image – pictures of emojis or people in various jobs or social situations – for the child to act out. The adult then tries to guess what the image represents.

The difference from usual charades is the video. While a child plays, the smartphone’s camera captures video, which serves two purposes. In the initial stages, Wall, Landay and colleagues already know which kids have autism and which don’t, and the point is to analyze the video using machine learning methods to figure out which facial expressions, movements or other behaviors distinguish those with autism. From that, the app would learn to detect indicators of autism, which a child’s doctor could then use to screen kids without having to see them in a specialized clinic. Preliminary experiments, Wall said, suggest the strategy could work – and that the time is right to expand the team’s efforts.

Charades as therapy

Now, Wall said, “our goal is to build it up, and that’s where the seed grant comes in.” With that funding, the team is gearing up for field tests with a wider group of families, who will participate in co-designing the next version of the app. The team will also continue to gather data that could help the app better distinguish between kids with and without autism.

The seed grant will also go toward developing GuessWhat into a therapeutic as well as diagnostic app, creating what Wall calls an action-to-data feedback loop. “That could enable us to track progress using GuessWhat game play as a metric while treating the children” to be more able to function well in social situations, Wall said. “Once they’re more social, many will switch tracks from a delayed development track consistent with autism to a more typical development track.”

In the coming months, Wall and colleagues will work with clinicians to incorporate elements of two standard autism therapies, known as discrete trial learning and pivotal response training, into GuessWhat. Some features of those therapies, such as flashcards that teach kids to discriminate between emotions and games that emphasize imitation and social interaction, could be relatively easy to implement in a smartphone app, Wall said. Ultimately, the hope is to get ready for clinical trials to test GuessWhat’s therapeutic value sometime in the next few years.

But the most important goal may be simply to keep track of a lot of data – for example, which diagnostic decisions are made and why. “Medicine in general has failed to do a good job of record management,” Wall said. “So, when something happens in a doctor’s office – identifying a breathing abnormality with a stethoscope, a visual screen of a developmental delay, a screen of the eyes – much of what drives that doctor to arrive at a decision is lost.” By actually storing lots of data on kids playing games, researchers have a better place to start when trying to understand what autism is and how to address it.

“No one has ever captured this data before,” Wall said. “That creates an opportunity to do much, much more for developmental pediatric health going forward.”

Wall is a member of Stanford Bio-X, the Maternal & Child Health Research Institute and the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. Landay is a member of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. Additional collaborators are Haik Kalantarian, a postdoctoral fellow in pediatrics and biomedical data science; Peter Washington, a graduate student in bioengineering; researchers Aaron Kline and Qandeel Tariq; and clinical research coordinators Kaitlyn Dunlap and Jessey Schwartz.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Stanford University campus. No image credit

Stanford University

Leland and Jane Stanford founded the University to “promote the public welfare by exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization.” Stanford opened its doors in 1891, and more than a century later, it remains dedicated to finding solutions to the great challenges of the day and to preparing our students for leadership in today’s complex world. Stanford, is an American private research university located in Stanford, California on an 8,180-acre (3,310 ha) campus near Palo Alto. Since 1952, more than 54 Stanford faculty, staff, and alumni have won the Nobel Prize, including 19 current faculty members

From Autism TDF Theatre Initiative: “TDF Autism Friendly Performances Audience-thrilling. Autism-friendly”

Austim TDF

tdf

TDF Autism Friendly Performances present Broadway musicals and plays in a friendly, supportive environment for children and adults who are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder or other sensitivity issues and their families and friends. Since 2011, TDF has presented more than 15 autism-friendly shows on Broadway, starting with Disney’s landmark musical The Lion King.

Some of the many autism-friendly performances on Broadway since then include Mary Poppins, Spider-Man, Wicked, Matilda, Phantom of the Opera, Aladdin and more. TDF’s autism-friendly performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was the first autism-friendly performance of a non-musical in Broadway history.

Beyond Broadway, TDF’ works with theatres across the country as part of its National Autism Friendly Performances to help create environments that are accessible to all.

TDF Autism Friendly Performances present Broadway musicals and plays in a friendly, supportive environment for children and adults who are diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder or other sensitivity issues and their families and friends. Since 2011, TDF has presented more than 15 autism-friendly shows on Broadway, starting with Disney’s landmark musical The Lion King.

Some of the many autism-friendly performances on Broadway since then include Mary Poppins, Spider-Man, Wicked, Matilda, Phantom of the Opera, Aladdin and more. TDF’s autism-friendly performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was the first autism-friendly performance of a non-musical in Broadway history.

Beyond Broadway, TDF’ works with theatres across the country as part of its National Autism Friendly Performances to help create environments that are accessible to all.

Upcoming autism-friendly shows for the 2018-2019 season:

The Lion King, Sunday September 30, 2018 at 1 p.m. — SOLD OUT
Frozen, Sunday November 4, 2018 at 1 p.m. — SOLD OUT
Aladdin, Sunday March 3, 2019 at 1 p.m. —
SOLD OUT
My Fair Lady, Sunday May 5, 2019 at 1 p.m.

Performance Schedule
TUESDAY & THURSDAY @ 7 PM
WEDNESDAY, FRIDAY & SATURDAY @ 8 PM
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY @ 2 PM
SUNDAY @ 3 PM

The most beloved musical of all time, Lerner & Loewe’s MY FAIR LADY returns to Broadway in a lavish new production from Lincoln Center Theater, the theater that brought you the Tony-winning revivals of South Pacific and The King and I. Now nominated for 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical Revival!

Directed by Tony winner Bartlett Sher, the stellar cast tells the story of Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney flower seller, and Henry Higgins, a linguistics professor who is determined to transform her into his idea of a “proper lady.” But who is really being transformed?

The classic score features “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “The Rain in Spain,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” and “On the Street Where You Live.” The original 1956 production won six Tony Awards including Best Musical, and was hailed by The New York Times as “one of the best musicals of the century.”

What makes a performance autism-friendly?

Slight adjustments to the production are made, including reduction of any jarring sounds or strobe and spot lights that shine into the audience. House lights are faintly dimmed but remain on. TDF works closely with professionals in the field and with consultants on the autism spectrum to make each show accessible and enjoyable for everyone.

TDF creates resources for each production that help prepare audience members for a day at the theatre. A team of volunteers and autism specialists are available throughout the theatre. Break areas are available to anyone who may need to leave their seats during the performance.

TDF Autism Friendly Performances are funded in part by:

Darlene & Stuart Altschuler; The Theodore H. Barth Foundation; Helene and Ilene Berger; The FAR Fund; The Joseph H. Flom Foundation; Harry S. Black and Allon Fuller Fund, NEXT for AUTISM from the proceeds of Night of Too Many Stars; Stavros Niarchos Foundation; Adolph and Ruth Schnurmacher Foundation; Seventh District Foundation; and The Taft Foundation.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

This program is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

If you too would like to support the work of the Autism Friendly Performances, please make a donation.

We can make no assurances that these performances will be suitable for everyone with autism. Parents and guardians are solely responsible for their child’s viewing and engagement with these performances.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

About TDF
A not-for-profit organization
What is TDF?

TDF is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to bringing the power of the performing arts to everyone.

Mission Statement

TDF sustains live theatre and dance by engaging and cultivating a broad and diverse audience and eliminating barriers to attendance.

Vision Statement

TDF envisions a world where the transformative experience of attending live theatre and dance is essential, relevant, accessible and inspirational.
Manifesto

For everyone who ever saw something live on stage
or dearly wished they could.
For every kid who wonders what if.
For every teacher who’s looking to light the spark.
For everyone who wants to know the thrill
of the live experience, but thinks it’s not for them.
We’re here to say: it’s for all of us.
For the enthusiasts, the young, the old,
the newbies and the nostalgics, the critics,
the purists and the innocents.
For those electric moments that change
how we see, think, feel, live.
For all those players, producers and creators
who make the magic.
For today’s shows and audiences – and tomorrow’s.
For everyone who wants to feel the power
of the performing arts.
We’re here.
We’re tdf.

From RIKEN: “Brain clock ticks differently in autism”

From RIKEN

February 15, 2019
Adam Phillips
RIKEN International Affairs Division
Tel: +81-(0)48-462-1225
Fax: +81-(0)48-463-3687
Email: pr@riken.jp

The neural ‘time windows’ in certain small brain areas contribute to the complex cognitive symptoms of autism, new research suggests. In a brain imaging study of adults, the severity of autistic symptoms was linked to how long these brain areas stored information. The differences in neural timescales may underlie features of autism like hypersensitivity and could be useful as a future diagnostic tool.

Sensory areas of the brain that receive input from the eyes, skin and muscles usually have shorter processing periods compared with higher-order areas that integrate information and control memory and decision-making. The new study, published in the journal eLife on February 5, shows that this hierarchy of intrinsic neural timescales is disrupted in autism. Atypical information processing in the brain is thought to underlie the repetitive behaviors and socio-communicational difficulties seen across the spectrum of autistic neurodevelopmental disorders (ASD), but this is one of the first indications that small-scale temporal dynamics could have an outsized effect.

Magnetic resonance imaging of the brains of high-functioning male adults with autism were compared to those of people without autism. In the resting state, both groups showed the expected pattern of longer timescales in frontal brain areas linked to executive control, and shorter timescales in sensory and motor areas. “Shorter timescales mean higher sensitivity in a particular brain region, and we found the most sensitive neural responses in those individuals with the most severe autistic symptoms,” says lead author Takamitsu Watanabe of the RIKEN Center for Brain Science. One brain area that displayed the opposite pattern was the right caudate, where the neural timescale was longer than normal, particularly in individuals with more severe repetitive, restricted behaviors. These differences in brain activity were also found in separate scans of autistic and neurotypical children.

The team of Japanese and UK researchers think that structural changes in small parts of the brain link these local dynamics to ASD symptoms. They found changes in grey matter volume in the areas with atypical neural timescales. A greater density of neurons can contribute to recurrent, repetitive neural activity patterns, which underlie the longer and shorter timescales observed in the right caudate and bilateral sensory/visual cortices, respectively. “The neural timescale is a measure of how predictable the activity is in a given brain region. The shorter timescales we observed in the autistic individuals suggest their brains have trouble holding onto and processing sensory input for as long as neurotypical people,” says Watanabe. “This may explain one prominent feature of autism, the great weight given by the brain to local sensory information and the resulting perceptual hypersensitivity.”

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Stem Education Coalition

RIKEN is Japan’s largest comprehensive research institution renowned for high-quality research in a diverse range of scientific disciplines. Founded in 1917 as a private research foundation in Tokyo, RIKEN has grown rapidly in size and scope, today encompassing a network of world-class research centers and institutes across Japan.

From Rutgers University: “Adults With Autism to Benefit From New Employment Center at Rutgers”

Our Great Seal.

From Rutgers University

February 14, 2019
Megan Schumann
MEGAN.SCHUMANN@rutgers.edu

Craig Lillard of Princeton (left) who works at Harvest in the Institute for Food Nutrition and Health as part of the Rutgers Center for Adult Autism Services with mentor Doug Stracquadanio. Courtesy of Rutgers University

Rutgers Center for Adult Autism Services, the first program of its kind in the country, will more than double in size

The Rutgers University Board of Governors today approved a proposal by the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology to build a new facility for the Rutgers Center for Adult Autism Services (RCAAS) on Rutgers-New Brunswick’s Douglass campus.

The two-year-old center, the first of its kind at a higher education institution in the United States, currently provides employment, vocational training and other services to 12 participants who commute from home. The expansion will enable the program to serve up to 30 participants. The project, estimated to cost $9.5 million, will be paid for through philanthropic funds.

Christopher Manente, executive director of RCAAS, said, “We are committed to serving adults with autism by providing meaningful paid employment, full integration into the Rutgers community and ongoing research and training related to helping adults with autism lead full lives. We serve as a model that can be replicated at colleges and universities, or within small communities across the country.”

Current participants have paying jobs on campus, five days a week, in food service, horticulture maintenance, university mail services, document and records management, the Rutgers Cinema, computer retail services, and other areas. Participants also benefit from individualized services to help them succeed on the job and maintain their independence in the community.

The new facility will include a multifunctional gathering space and vocational training space, administrative offices for faculty and clinical staff and support spaces and provide community-based job training, life skills and recreational opportunities.

Autism and autism spectrum disorder are among the fastest-growing developmental disabilities in the United States. Rutgers-New Brunswick’s Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology created the center to address the well-documented shortage of quality services that help adults with autism lead meaningful and productive lives, and to conduct research that can inform the development of other programs for adults with autism.

The new building will be at the location of the former Corwin Dormitories on Nichol Avenue between Comstock Street and Dudley Road in New Brunswick. Its development will include demolition of the vacant Corwin residential buildings. Groundbreaking is expected later this year.

Rutgers-New Brunswick is a leader in autism research facilities. The Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository, containing the world’s largest collection of autism biomaterials, and the Douglass Developmental Disabilities Center, which includes an on-campus K-12 day school for children with autism from across New Jersey, are among many research and educational programs for autism at the university.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to providing services, solutions, and clinical care that help individuals and the local, national, and global communities where they live.

Founded in 1766, Rutgers teaches across the full educational spectrum: preschool to precollege; undergraduate to graduate; postdoctoral fellowships to residencies; and continuing education for professional and personal advancement.

As a ’67 graduate of University college, second in my class, I am proud to be a member of

Alpha Sigma Lamda, National Honor Society of non-tradional students.

From Stoney Brook University – SUNY: “Is Autism Truly a Spectrum?”

From Stoney Brook University – SUNY

New Research Suggests Classification More Complex

February 8 , 2019
Gregory Filiano

A new study of children and adolescents suggests classifying autism is complex and not an all-or-nothing diagnosis.

A new Stony Brook University-led study that compared two large independent samples of children and adolescents totaling about 6,000 people with and without diagnosed autism reveals that autism may be better understood as several interrelated spectra rather than a spectrum. The study is published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

According to the lead researchers – Stony Brook University Professor Matthew Lerner and graduate student Hyunsik Kim – the study findings may have vast implications with the way professionals classify autism and better understand and map the array of experiences of autistic people.

Kim explained that the results indicate autism is combined of three related domains of atypical behavior – social interaction difficulties, interpersonal communications difficulties, and repetitive or restrictive thoughts or actions. And each of these domains can range in severity from very mild to severe.

“All of this suggests autism is not best understood as an all-or-nothing diagnosis, nor a single spectrum, but rather related spectra of behavioral traits across a population.”

The research is supported in part by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

Stony Brook University-SUNY reach extends from its 1,039-acre campus on Long Island’s North Shore–encompassing the main academic areas, an 8,300-seat stadium and sports complex and Stony Brook Medicine–to Stony Brook Manhattan, a Research and Development Park, four business incubators including one at Calverton, New York, and the Stony Brook Southampton campus on Long Island’s East End. Stony Brook also co-manages Brookhaven National Laboratory, joining Princeton, the University of Chicago, Stanford, and the University of California on the list of major institutions involved in a research collaboration with a national lab.

And Stony Brook is still growing. To the students, the scholars, the health professionals, the entrepreneurs and all the valued members who make up the vibrant Stony Brook community, this is a not only a great local and national university, but one that is making an impact on a global scale.

From UCLA Newsroom: “UCLA-led team uncovers critical new clues about what goes awry in brains of people with autism”

From UCLA Newsroom

January 30, 2019
Stuart Wolpert

Changes in RNA editing play an important role in the disorder, scientists find.

The research of UCLA professors Xinshu (Grace) Xiao, Dr. Daniel Geschwind and their team is the first comprehensive study of RNA editing in autism spectrum disorder.

A team of UCLA-led scientists has discovered important clues to what goes wrong in the brains of people with autism — a developmental disorder with no cure and for which scientists have no deep understanding of what causes it.

The new insights involve RNA editing — in which genetic material is normal, but modifications in RNA alter nucleotides, whose patterns carry the data required for constructing proteins.

“RNA editing is probably having a substantial physiologic effect in the brain, but is poorly understood,” said co-author Dr. Daniel Geschwind, UCLA’s Gordon and Virginia MacDonald distinguished professor of human genetics, neurology and psychiatry and director of UCLA’s Institute for Precision Health. “RNA editing is a mysterious area whose biological implications have not been much explored. We know what only a handful of these RNA editing sites do to proteins. This study gives a new critical clue in understanding what has gone awry in the brains of autism patients.”

More than 24 million people worldwide are estimated to have autism. In developed countries, about 1.5 percent of children have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder as of 2017. The disorder affects communication and behavior, and is marked by problems in social communication and social interaction, and repetitive behaviors.

“We need to understand how a panoply of genetic and environmental factors converges to cause autism,” Geschwind said. “RNA editing is an important piece of the autism puzzle that has been totally under-appreciated.”

The researchers analyzed brain samples from 69 people who died, about half of whom had autism spectrum disorder (which includes autism and related conditions), and about half of whom did not and served as a control group.

Xinshu (Grace) Xiao, the senior author of the research and UCLA’s Maria R. Ross professor of integrative biology and physiology, and her research team analyzed seven billion nucleotides for each brain sample.

Xiao’s team discovered reduced editing in the group members with autism. Specifically, they identified 3,314 editing sites in the brain’s frontal cortex in which the autism patients had different levels of RNA editing from the control group. In 2,308 of those sites, the individuals with autism had reduced RNA editing, said lead author Stephen Tran, a graduate student in UCLA’s bioinformatics interdepartmental program who works in Xiao’s laboratory. In the 1,006 others, they had increased levels of RNA editing, he added.

Stephen Tran. Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

In the brain’s temporal cortex, the people with autism had different levels of RNA editing from the control group in 2,412 editing sites, with 1,471 of those sites showing reduced editing levels, Tran said. In the brain’s cerebellum, the autism group members had different levels of RNA editing from control group members in 4,340 sites, of which 3,330 sites in the autistic brain had decreased levels. All three of these brain regions are very important in autism.

The research, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, is the first comprehensive study of RNA editing in autism spectrum disorder.

Xiao said RNA editing can be thought of as RNA mutations, analogous to the DNA mutations that are linked to many diseases.

“The same piece of DNA can generate multiple versions of RNA, and possibly lead to different protein sequences,” said Xiao, director of UCLA’s bioinformatics interdepartmental graduate program. “RNA editing allows cells to create novel protein sequences that are not written in the DNA.”

Scientists had long assumed that a sequence of RNA is a faithful copy of a gene’s DNA sequence — and that RNA is merely the cellular messenger that carries out DNA’s instructions to other parts of the cell. “This assumption was proved to be wrong when RNA editing was first discovered in the 1980s,” Xiao said, “and we are finding many examples where the genetic codes we inherit from our parents are edited in our cells.”

In another major finding, the researchers identified two proteins, called FMRP and FXR1P, that regulate abnormal RNA editing in autism spectrum disorder. FMRP increases RNA editing and FXR1P decreases RNA editing, Tran discovered. The autism group had reduced editing levels regulated by FMRP, as well as reduced RNA editing overall.

“This is the first strong data showing a broad and direct functional role for FMRP and FXR1P in the human brain and autism,” Xiao said.

“Something about what FMRP does is clearly critical to autism pathogenesis,” Geschwind said. “Grace and her team show that these two related proteins are likely responsible for the reduced RNA editing, as well as the occasional increased RNA editing.”

It is currently unknown, he said, whether the changes the people with autism had in RNA editing caused their autism, contributed to the disorder or were a result of it. “We can’t assign causality,” said Geschwind, who praised the research of Xiao’s team as “elegant and brilliant.”

RNA editing may also be disrupted in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression. The research team plans to continue to study this as well as other brain diseases.

Xiao and Tran replicated their findings by analyzing the frontal cortex from a different group of 22 people who had autism spectrum disorder and a control group of 23 without the disorder. They found the same pattern of editing reduction as they found originally, Tran said.

The researchers found RNA editing alterations in genes of critical neurological relevance to autism, including CNTNAP2 and CNTNAP4, NRXN1 and NRXN3, ANK2, NOVA1 and RBFOX1.

Xiao and Tran used powerful methods of bioinformatics and statistics to identify the RNA editing sites, including a method similar to GIREMI that Xiao designed in 2015 with Qing Zhang, a former postdoctoral scholar in her laboratory.

In searching for causes of diseases, most research has focused on searching for mutations in the DNA. “What was missing, until recently,” Xiao said, “is to look for RNA mutations that are not coded in the DNA. These changes in the RNA could have similar impact as DNA mutations.”

This study may eventually lead to new treatments for autism, but likely not for many years, the researchers said.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings
Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

For nearly 100 years, UCLA has been a pioneer, persevering through impossibility, turning the futile into the attainable.

We doubt the critics, reject the status quo and see opportunity in dissatisfaction. Our campus, faculty and students are driven by optimism. It is not naïve; it is essential. And it has fueled every accomplishment, allowing us to redefine what’s possible, time after time.

This can-do perspective has brought us 12 Nobel Prizes, 12 Rhodes Scholarships, more NCAA titles than any university and more Olympic medals than most nations. Our faculty and alumni helped create the Internet and pioneered reverse osmosis. And more than 100 companies have been created based on technology developed at UCLA.