ABC News article: The Answers to Autism May Be Inside the Mind

[Guest guest]

Hi all,Below is a message I sent to the parents of the children of the ABA center my son goes to.

I am hoping you find this interesting.

Hope this helps,

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi all,

I just found the following article that it is very interesting. It talks about how MRIs and EEGs are helping diagnose autism. It is also very interesting that they mention how seizure activity can be detected by performing an EEG study in a child.

The Answers to Autism May Be Inside the Mindhttp://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=4882297 & page=1

I like the following line in the article "One doctor in California is arguing that trying to diagnose autism without looking at the brain is like trying to diagnose a heart condition without looking at the heart, though the established autism community isn't so sure. "

It is also very interesting how some parents interviewed gave anti-seizure medication to their children and now they're are mainstreamed in regular schools.

Miranda put Beckett on anti-seizure medicine and the results have been astounding. "Within a period of 60 days his vocabulary went from maybe two or three words to about 300 words," Miranda said. To watch Beckett today, you might think he has a bit of trouble speaking, but it's minor. You'd never think he was autistic. He's being mainstreamed in kindergarten, in a school that he attends with his brother.

We did an EEG study on in April 2007, guess what??? The results came positive to seizure activity in his brain. I will post 's EEG results tonight for you to see.

I was curious to know why and how the anti-seizure medications worked in these children so I did some research. The anti-seizure medication helps neutralize the neurotransmitters similar to the SSRIs. How interesting! We have done several lab tests that show that 's neurotransmitters are imbalanced. I have posted some results in the links section of the Yahoo group for you to see.

Now, what causes seizures? One of the causes for seizures is temporal lobe inflammation. Very interesting, 's brain SPECT scan shows that. What causes the neurotransmitter imbalance? The brain inflammation. That is why the anti-seizure medication and SSRIs work.

I have including links below that explains how brain inflammation causes seizures.

I am sure that you all know McCarthy's story by now. Her son Evan had live-threatening seizures when he was diagnosed with "autism". Please notice how she mentions, "My completely healthy 2-year-old" - children with regressive autism were not borned with this disease.http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/24/jenny.autism/index.html

"I didn't know what was going on with my son Evan. One day he was a completely healthy 2-year-old and the next he kept having life-threatening seizures." - McCarthy

Anti-seizure medication listhttp://www.efwp.org/programs/side_effects.shtml

How the anti-seizure medications work? They help balance the neurotransmitters in the brain.I took one medication from the list above and went to the drugs.com website to get more information about it.Diastat/epamhttp://www.drugs.com/ppa/diazepam.html

Diastat pharmacologyPotentiates action of GABA, inhibitory neurotransmitter, resulting in increased neural inhibition and CNS depression, especially in limbic system and reticular formation.

The only thing that it is not talked about in the article is the brain inflammation that causes the seizures. That is the information I sent yesterday from the Merck pharmaceuticals Co. article.

Innate Immunity and Inflammation in Temporal Lobe Epilepsyhttp://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2384155

Brain Inflammation and Seizureshttp://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=531665

Temporal lobe seizurehttp://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/DS/00266.html

Hope this helps you put all the puzzle pieces together,

Thanks, and 's dad