Full article here (no paywall):
Full article here (no paywall):
An interesting read, but it has one key area of vagueness - they don't know quite what to look for yet:
a Kobe University research team created a bank of 63 mouse embryonic stem cell lines containing the mutations most strongly associated with the disorder.
Although it is well understood that genetics influence the development of autism spectrum disorder, no one could yet pinpoint the precise cause and mechanism.
It is good that they are looking, but they don't really know what they are looking for yet. It is like they are searching for the cure without knowing what the condition actually is.
In my opinion they should focus on understanding what the generic identity of autism really is first, then work on possible treatments.
Without autists in the world I suspect that a great deal of the scientific community would become poorly populated so it is conceivable that the government / big corporations would selectively breed (or modify) to obtain the standard of scientists they need and keep them contained to give them an environment in which they could provide maxium output.
With the relaxing of medical oversight in the US and the rise in power of billionaires then this becomes a scary possibility.
That’s better thank you, although I don’t fully understand it.
I don’t either Lotus. There is a link within the article to the fuller original version of the study in cell.com. It is even more gobbledygook to me, but it seems to be a recognised peer reviewed journal, so it should be sound if anyone can understand it.
Indeed, ‘The Wail’ has often printed material of dubious sources and has a habit of sensationalising headlines of occurrences that shouldn’t be newsworthy. The link wanted me to allow all cookies to read the study, but I don’t like agreeing to all cookies on any website.
The article might be referring to a study by Prof Takumi at Kobe University, Japan which was published on 11th June. If it isn’t the same study, it might still be of interest to some people.
Thank you Bunny.
The link below takes you to to a vastly more readable article:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/06/250614034240.htm
Thank you for the link.
I'm not a scientist and so I don't understand this article fully, however from what I read I believe that they grew cells from mice embryos and engineered them using a gene editing technology which allows precise changes to DNA, so that they had the genetic mutations associated with autism. How do we know that the results they observed mirror what happens in a human brain? How can we be sure that DNA mutations seen in autistic people caused their autism? Are there any science experts here who can explain more?
There is a big incentive to find a medication to "treat" autism, as the pharmaceutical industry makes mega bucks for its shareholders. But in the UK if there was widespread prescribing, it would put more financial pressure on the already strained NHS.
And if they did eliminate autism, or medicate away autistic traits and behaviour what then? Here are some good quotes from the autistic woman, college professor and animal behaviour expert Temple Grandin:
"Normal people have an incredible lack of empathy"
"There needs to be more emphasis on what a child CAN do, rather than what they cannot do"
"The world needs different kinds of minds to work together"
"What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool? You would have a bunch of people standing around ...... Chatting and socialising and not getting anything done"
If the Daily Wail told me it was raining, I'd still go and check! I've seen so many articles in that publication that are complete rubbish, like the one that said hair dye causes bladder cancer. Complete rubbish, I went and read the study they quoted and the study found a 0.03% increase in likelyhood hood of bladder cancer in hairdressers, it gave no causes and 0.03% is statistically insignificant.
I also remember customers coming into the wholefood shop where I worked asking for Chinse herbs that nobody had ever heard of, they came to us because the CHinese medicine shop in town hadn't heard of them either. According to them, all good wholefood shops would sell this mystery herb, we had quite a few people get angry at us for not knowing anything about it.
Science coverage in national press is terrible, most of the journalists have no science background and yet write about these incredibly complex issues as if they're simple.
You've got to love the Daily Mail comments — their readers are genuinely baffled that conditions like autism and ADHD are being diagnosed more often.
Everyone’s got something these days? Yeah — it’s called diagnosis. We stopped calling kids ‘weird’ and started actually understanding them. I know, shocking concept.
I’m normal, it’s these neurotypicals that have the problem
