Posted on 09/07/2022 2:33:58 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Meghan Puglia, a neurologist at the University of Virginia, is working to detect autism in babies much earlier. Her goal is to help children with autism achieve optimal outcomes through earlier diagnosis.
“We know early intervention is the strongest predictor of optimal outcomes for kids with autism,” Puglia said.
Right now, she says the earliest age that autism can be diagnosed is at 18 months.
“All babies, before they leave the hospital, get a hearing screening and metabolic tests. There is no screening for autism until the baby is toddling around and starting to talk,” Puglia said.
Each week, Puglia meets several babies just a few weeks old. In her lab, they are contributing to help the next generation of babies.
“All of our babies that come into the lab were this tiny little stretchy swim cap, essentially, with little sensors that are embedded in it. This cap is our EEG system, or electroencephalography,” Puglia said.
The cap, made up of 32 sensors, measures the neurological activity of the brain. Puglia is using the cap to look for markers in the brain that denote autism.
“We’re really interested in looking at the variability in the way the brain is responding over time. You might think too much variability might be a bad thing, but actually there is a sweet spot is what we’re finding,” Puglia said.
She’s working to create new social development growth charts from the information she gathers. This will then help other children, too.
The session starts with a spit sample from the baby. Then the child gets adjusted to the environment with their mother. Next, the cap is put o and the gentle tests begin. Puglia and her teammates play different noises, create various senses, to see how the babies react.
Puglia says most of the children coming in are just a few weeks old but she understands not all parents can make that happen. She’ll see children at four months, too. The study is ongoing and the babies will continue to come in until they are 16 months of age so Puglia can see how they’ve progressed.
“We also have a sister study that we’re doing in the UVA Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the NICU, and that one is looking at babies who are born preterm,” Puglia said.
If the study is a success and the test works, the goal is to have all babies go through it, so there can be a better idea of which babies need a little help early on. It would be a supplement to the other tests newborns go through before they leave the hospital.
“We’re hoping to intervene even earlier and identify which babies would benefit from a diagnosis and additional care, that is the ultimate goal,” Puglia said.
Puglia says if they can catch autism at an earlier age, it will be easier for children to go into therapies ad get the help they need. While doing this study, she can already help analyze the way babies’ minds work at such a young age.
Puglia says she is about to see her 100th baby in the past year. She is still taking more for her study. If you are interested in having your child involved in the research you can go here and reach out.
I have told a few people that their babies were on the spectrum because I could just see it. Of course, they laughed -— and I certainly would never push the point. Months/years later they got the diagnosis. It’s like buying a new truck and suddenly noticing all the same make/model on the road that you never noticed before.
Thank you for the excellent post.
Also
Neuroligin 3 R451C mutation alters electroencephalography spectral activity in an animal model of autism spectrum disorders
https://molecularbrain.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13041-017-0290-2
I attended several classes on autism research at the American Psychiatric Ass’n conference, as well as an exteneded program on the effect of the gut biom on psychiatric disorders. Considering that 95% of the bodies serotonin and 5-Htp is produced in the enterochromaffin like cells in the gut, I would expect a considerable influence upon emotional supression.
The above article explains that the Neuroligin 3 R451C mutation also downregulation of the inhibitory γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptors.
Children who encounter childhood trauma have a similar shift in consciousness prematurely from the emotional child to a logical sense of self to suppress emotional pain. These are the 7 yr old going on 35.
This shift normally begins around age 7 or 8 and continues through about 16 when they have a strong self identity.
The EEG patterns in autism reflect a decreased Delta and Theta frequencies of early childhood which are the emotional foundation. They prematurely shift into the Alpha frequency relating to the logical consciousness.
In teenagers with Asperger’s, I noticed that they need about a half hour alone after school to release the emotional tension built up during the day. After this pressure release, they are fine.
When the thalamus receives both emotional and logical input, the thalamus blocks the emotional input creating increased tension and frustration. If only logical stimulus is received the tension does not build up.
This topic has fascinated me for the past 30 years as I resembled the Asberger’s child in many ways due to an emotional trauma prior to age 4 that created a shift prematurely in me.
I feel it just by being near them.
I am most assuredly NOT a victim.
Comment was tongue and cheek.
My apologies -— I don’t always “get” humor. I tend to take things rather literally.
I look at the things they define as Autism “spectrum”, or AD(H)D, or any number of other “diagnoses” and I thank God that this stuff wasn’t going on when I was in elementary school ... I would almost certainly have been “diagnosed”, tracked as “special ed”, not properly challenged (because of a “disability”), and probably not ended up where I am today. (field test engineer with a lot of responsibility). They almost got me with the “speech therapist”, but she declared me “cured” after a half a year or so ...
Thanks for the education.
Thank you for sharing your very interesting observations and first hand experience.
Take a close look at the branches of the vagus nerves, which become the 10th cranial nerve. I have found that the disruption of this inhibits and disrupts the entire nervous system and several organs, including the gut.
I work more with consciousness, trying to understand its influences upon the biochemistry.
Fascinating subject. Thanks for sharing.
🙏🙏🙏
Habituation refers to the decreased and change in response due to memory and dimishment due to lack of novelty. Not the copycat features that occur with a cognitively intact infant mimicking facial expression ie tongue in and out or wiggling. With some infants one could get them to mirror tongue movements from one side of mouth to the other.
Take a look at Glycine too. Another powerful inhibitory neurotransmitter.
The key to all the activity is to 8ncrease fem8nine consciousness and to help the child experience the feeling of Love.
Love will open up the closed neural circuitry.
Holding the child, preferably against your bare skin and communicating in a loving way is the best medicine.
Sorry for the typos. I’m sitting in the hot tub in the dark and my glasses are fogged up!
Agreed. Of course that will require a sea change in the erasing of womanhood direction that we are heading.
You can take your resentment and your spectrum and show them
to the driver of the short bus for a ride to the tard hall.
In the real world, we do not celebrate defectives.
before posting! massive run on paragraph! (It was late!)
I will look at glycine. Conservative mind posted something about use of NAC and Glycine as aging support so I began to supplement with glycine.
Glycine is an inhibitory neurotransmitter like GABA.
Thank you for that information!
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