http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Commonly prescribed beta 2 adrenergic agonist drugs for the treatment of asthma in pregnant women as well as pre-term labor may increase the incidence of autism-spectrum disorders, psychiatric pathology, cognitive problems and poor school performance in their children, according to a new study published in the December 2009 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. http://www.physorg.com/news178979208.html Medicine & Health Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:40:02 EST news178979208 (PhysOrg.com) -- Oxford University scientists are using brain-scanning technology to understand how we learn to recognise and 'read' faces as children. http://www.physorg.com/news177940432.html Medicine & Health Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:54:55 EST news177940432 (PhysOrg.com) -- UA researchers present evidence that the Ritalin is effective in treating preschoolers with Autism in a first-ever clinical trial to test the medication's efficacy with children with the disorder. http://www.physorg.com/news177846441.html Medicine & Health Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:20:01 EST news177846441 Children with autism may have lower quality handwriting and trouble forming letters compared to children without autism, according to a study published in the November 10, 2009, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. http://www.physorg.com/news177008511.html Medicine & Health Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:30:05 EST news177008511 Scientific understanding and medical treatments for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) have advanced significantly over the past several years, but much remains to be done, say experts from the Center for Autism Research at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia who published a scientific review of the field today. http://www.physorg.com/news174751538.html Medicine & Health Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:30:02 EST news174751538 The first ever major study into adults living with autism was published today by the NHS Information Centre. The report, entitled 'Autism Spectrum Disorders in adults living in households throughout England 2007' was written by Professor Terry Brugha, a Consultant Psychiatrist with Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Leicester with a team of UK researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news172845617.html Medicine & Health Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:49:49 EST news172845617 (AP) -- Thirteen-year-old Andrea Levy ticked off a mental list of rules to follow when her guest arrived: Greet her at the door. Introduce her to the family. Offer a cold drink. http://www.physorg.com/news170053709.html Medicine & Health Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:40:01 EST news170053709 The way people with autism see and process the body language of others could be preventing them from gauging people's feelings, according to new research. http://www.physorg.com/news168675525.html Medicine & Health Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:22:37 EST news168675525 Ask middle-school students if they are popular or make friends easily, they likely will depend on social comparisons with their peers for an answer. Such reliance on the perceived opinions of others, or reflected self-appraisals, has long been assumed, but new evidence supporting this claim has now been found in the teen brain. http://www.physorg.com/news166866792.html Medicine & Health Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:10:01 EST news166866792 Since the 1970s, there has been much debate surrounding the fact that individuals with autism have difficulty in understanding speech in situations where there is background speech or noise. http://www.physorg.com/news165750637.html Medicine & Health Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:50:56 EST news165750637 (PhysOrg.com) -- More pieces in the complex autism inheritance puzzle are emerging in the latest study from a research team including geneticists from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and several collaborating institutions. This study identified 27 different genetic regions where rare copy number variations - missing or extra copies of DNA segments - were found in the genes of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), but not in the healthy controls. The complex combination of multiple genetic duplications and deletions is thought to interfere with gene function, which can disrupt the production of proteins necessary for normal neurological development. http://www.physorg.com/news165172702.html Medicine & Health Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:50:01 EST news165172702 (PhysOrg.com) -- Our tendency to see people and faces as individuals may explain why we are such experts at recognizing them, new research indicates. This approach can be learned and applied to other objects as well. http://www.physorg.com/news165170630.html Medicine & Health Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:44:33 EST news165170630 The antidepressant citalopram does not appear to reduce the occurrence of repetitive behaviors in children and teens with autism spectrum disorders, according to a report in the June issue of Archives of General Psychiatry. http://www.physorg.com/news163093138.html Medicine & Health Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:39:21 EST news163093138 Research published this week in the Journal Autism, published by SAGE, estimate the annual costs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to be more than £27 billion a year. The costs of supporting children with ASDs were estimated to be £2.7 billion per year, £25 billion each year for adults. The findings will be presented at the Autism & Employment Workshop taking place today at Goldsmiths, University of London. http://www.physorg.com/news161847176.html Medicine & Health Mon, 18 May 2009 06:33:38 EST news161847176 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have shed light on how a protein implicated in cognitive disorders maintains and regulates brain cell structures that are key to learning and memory. http://www.physorg.com/news160755604.html Medicine & Health Tue, 05 May 2009 15:21:10 EST news160755604 "Timely identification and diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can impact a child's development and is the key to opening the door to the services and therapies available to children with autism," says Paul Shattuck, Ph.D., assistant professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. "Unfortunately, our research shows that the average age of autism diagnosis is nearly six years old, which is three to four years after diagnosis is possible." http://www.physorg.com/news160673874.html Medicine & Health Mon, 04 May 2009 16:39:12 EST news160673874 UCLA scientists, in partnership with 30 research institutions across the country, have identified a new gene variant that is highly common in autistic children. And when researchers scrutinized the activity of the gene, known as CDH10, in the fetal brain, they discovered that it is most active in key regions that support language, speech and interpreting social behavior. http://www.physorg.com/news160145737.html Medicine & Health Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:56:02 EST news160145737 Children who are firstborn or breech or whose mothers are 35 or older when giving birth are at significantly greater risk for developing an autism spectrum disorder, University of Utah School of Medicine researchers have reported in a new study with Utah children. http://www.physorg.com/news160048134.html Medicine & Health Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:49:29 EST news160048134 The twiggy boy who greets strangers at his Cedar Hill, Texas, home with a handshake and an impish grin bears no resemblance to the toddler who shied away from contact, screamed when he had to walk down the stairs and spent hours staring at the ceiling fan. http://www.physorg.com/news159107746.html Medicine & Health Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:36:25 EST news159107746 During the first week of class, the teens' eyes were downcast, their responses were mumbled and eye contact was almost nonexistent. By Week 12, though, these same kids were talkative, responsive and engaged. http://www.physorg.com/news158340517.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Apr 2009 16:28:58 EST news158340517 A paper published online today in Nature Neuroscience reveals the presence of methyl CpG binding protein 2 (MeCP2) in glia. MeCP2 is a protein associated with a variety of neurological disorders, including Rett Syndrome, the most physically disabling of the autism spectrum disorders. The researchers show that MeCP2-deficient astrocytes (a subset of glia) stunt the growth of neighboring neurons. Remarkably, these neurons can recover when exposed to normal glia in culture. http://www.physorg.com/news154610775.html Medicine & Health Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:48:25 EST news154610775 A new screening method can be used to detect the chromosomal abnormalities most commonly associated with autism spectrum disorders. By screening for genetic defects associated with various kinds of cognitive impairment, the approach described in the open access journal BMC Medical Genomics will help clinicians identify the underlying causes of some patients' autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). http://www.physorg.com/news143350510.html Medicine & Health Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:35:10 EST news143350510 The autistic disorder was first described, more than sixty years ago, by Dr. Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins Hospital (USA), who created the new label 'early infantile autism'. At the same time an Austrian scientist, Dr. Hans Asperger, described a milder form of the disorder that became known as Asperger Syndrome, characterised by higher cognitive abilities and more normal language function. Today, both disorders are classified in the continuum of 'Pervasive Developmental Disorders' (PDD), more often referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). http://www.physorg.com/news139488217.html Medicine & Health Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:43:37 EST news139488217