NIDS - For Doctors

NIDS and Autism Related Articles

May, 1999 The Journal of Pediatrics, a group of six
researchers concluded that "the presence of (brain autoantibodies) raises the possibility that autoimmuity plays a role in the pathogenesis of language and social development abnormalities in a subset of children (with autism and LKS)". (J Pediatrics 1999; 134:607-613)

June, 1999 The Journal of Child Neurology, researchers led by Dr. Anne M. Comi of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland concluded that "autism appears to be more common in families with a history of autoimmune disorders". The study included 61 autistic patients and 46 "healthy" patients. (J Child Neurology 1999;14:388-394)

Physicians at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York reported in The New England Journal of Medicine this year that men with testicular cancer and brain damage had a particular type of antibody in their blood that may have caused the brain damage. They believe the brain damage was not caused by the cancer, but by an overly aggressive attack by the body's own immune system on a protein produced by tumors. This is the third study to link brain damage to an immune system attack on cancer.

Department of Neurology physicians at The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ), Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, have designed an Autoimmune Disease Survey for autism and MS.