There are many brain disorders we have heard about. They are like
- Alzheimer disease
- Meningitis
- Encephalitis
- Epilepsy with random seizure
etc.
But none of these diseases are like autism, because most of these brain disorders are curable through proper medication, and these brain disorders are not transformed to another new disorder at the later stage.
So it is enough to understand, why autism is unique among different neuropsychiatric disorders.
One more unique characteristic of autism is, it is strongly genetic unlike others. That’s the reason why autism is incurable still now.
Wrong Genomic Expressions Lead To Autism Like Neuropsychiatric Disorders:
Most of the time we are looking for therapies, but therapy to cure autism can be found if we reach to the core reason of autism. As we know that autism is deeply rooted in some genetic bio-markers so investigation should begin through the genomic study, because abnormal genomic expressions lead to produce autism like neurological disorder.
Sometimes we are responsible for an upcoming generation with autistic disabilities because of our irregular life style.
Methylated DNA in the sperm of elder men may be responsible for autistic offspring. Researchers working at the University of Utah collected the sperm samples from 17 men in two phases. The sperm samples were taken once in 1990 and then in 2008. The study report says that methyl tags were found in sperm gradually over the time.
Image Courtesy: compbio.med.wayne.edu
Bradley Cairns, professor of oncological sciences and biochemistry at the University of Utah and investigator of Howard Hughes Medical Institute says, “Our results don’t make a direct connection between methylation change and outcomes in the offspring.” But we can conclude that the disabilities in offspring may be a reason of DNA modification or mutation through the process of DNA methylation in sperm with time since autism is strongly genetic. There is a possibility that the parental mutated sperms play a role to increase the risk of autism.
A question may arise here that, why do researchers give priority to the genetic mutation having methylated DNA?
We know that wrong genetic expressions can lead to produce abnormal proteins in brain, that’s the reason for social skill disorders, cognitive disabilities along with the behavioral impairment in autistic patients. Several studies were done with findings of different genetic bio-markers, which are responsible for the autistic disabilities. Apart from that, children having autistic disorders are also found with some methylated gene/s near the genes responsible for autism.
As we know autism is genetic and parental DNA is the source or the building block material of the newborn DNA, so there may be a connection between the methylated sperm DNA of father and of the newborn having autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
