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A new method of diagnosing autism has been proposed in California
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Autism is a mental disorder that occurs due to developmental disorders of the brain. This disorder is characterized by limited interests, monotonous, often repetitive movements, and a virtually complete lack of social interaction.
The disease begins to manifest itself at about 3 years of age, to date there are no effective methods of treating the disease, but there are drugs that to some extent improve the condition of children suffering from autism.
In addition, scientists have not been able to develop biomarkers that could be used to diagnose the disease before the first symptoms appear.
In different countries, scientists are working in this direction and finding new genes that may be related to the development of autism, but this creates certain difficulties in the process of creating drugs and diagnostic methods.
In California, a group of specialists, in the course of their research, managed to discover biomarkers that can help in the diagnosis of a mental disorder such as autism.
In the human body, calcium is necessary not only for bone strength, but also for the transmission of information between brain cells. The normal process of interaction between brain cells determines a number of other functions, including the ability to learn, memory regulation, cell excitability, and also contributes to the appearance of substances that transmit electrical impulses from nerve cells through the synaptic space between neurons. However, all of these functions are poorly developed in autism.
Californian specialists have established in their work that disruption of the IP3R channel, responsible for the release of calcium from the plasma membrane, may be directly related to the development of autism. Specialists assume that this discovery will help to better understand the mechanisms of the disease and develop new methods of diagnosis and treatment.
By the way, at the Israeli research institute, a group of scientists found that autism can be diagnosed using a fairly simple test.
Experts have found that healthy children have one interesting feature - they inhale pleasant smells longer than unpleasant ones, while children with autism do not have this feature.
Another group of specialists also analyzed the sperm of fathers whose children suffer from autism and found that this disease can be hereditary.
During the research, scientists tried to determine the probability of the disease being transmitted by inheritance, as well as to find out the causes of the mental disorder in epigenetic marks (groups that activate and deactivate genes).
Scientists have discovered that there are certain changes in the sperm of fathers of autistic children, which undoubtedly confirms the scientists' assumption that the disease begins to develop from the moment of the child's birth or even in the womb.
Experts note that early diagnosis of autism will help partially rid the child of the problem, which is why the development of diagnostic methods is so important.
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