Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are defined as developmental disorders that mainly affect social interaction and that can vary greatly between the people who present them , since they include a wide spectrum of problems. These include, for example, speech disorders, repetitive and / or compulsive behavior, a great dependence on routines, hyperactivity, anxiety and difficulty adapting to changes in their environment. Likewise, as a general rule, their skills when interacting with others are very different from the usual ones, which can make it difficult for them to integrate and cause social isolation.
And since there is a wide range of symptoms of ASDs, the diagnosis can be very complex, especially in its early stages of development, and time-consuming. Taking into account that these disorders, in Europe, have a prevalence of around one case per hundred births , it is especially urgent to develop tests for an increasingly early detection in order to help people with ASD and their families.
An international team of researchers is working on this and has just developed a new test that aims to detect autism in children. This academic team, made up of researchers from the British Universities of Warwick and Birmingham and the Italian University of Bologna, among others, believe that their new blood and urine tests that look for protein damage could lead to earlier detection of the disorders. spectrum and consequently children with autism may receive appropriate treatment much earlier in their lives.
Objective: early diagnosis
The article has been published in the journal Molecular Autism , and the team of researchers has been led by Dr. Naila Rabbani, from the University of Warwick. “ Our discovery could lead to earlier diagnosis and intervention. We also hope that the tests will reveal new factors that cause ASDs. With further testing, we will be able to reveal specific profiles in plasma and urine or ‘fingerprints’ of compounds with harmful modifications, and all of this can help us improve the diagnosis of ASDs and point the way to causes of ASDs that are still unknown. ”Rabbani explains.
A total of 38 children participated in the study –29 boys and nine girls, between five and twelve years old– who had been diagnosed with ASD and a control group of 31 children –23 boys and eight girls, of similar ages to those of the previous one – who did not suffer any of these disorders. And why the disparity in the number of boys and girls in the experiment? Because the research that has been carried out so far in general indicates that ASDs occur almost four times more in the case of men than in women.
The scientists took blood and urine samples from the children in both groups for analysis, and discovered that there were chemical differences between the two groups. They found a connection between autism and the presence of proteins damaged in blood plasma by oxidation and glycation, processes in which reactive oxygen species (ROS) and sugar molecules spontaneously modify proteins.
Once these chemical differences were identified, they entered all the data into a computer with the aim of developing algorithms that would make it possible to distinguish between children with autism and those in the control group. The result of the study was a diagnostic test that is better than any method currently available , according to these scientists, who believe it is the first test of its kind.
In any case, the test is still in the research phase, and the next steps for this group of scientists will be to repeat the study with other groups of children to confirm the good diagnostic performance of the test and to assess whether it can identify autism in very early stages. , which would allow an earlier diagnosis of ASDs and know if the treatments are working.
