Bio Agents

Title of Research: The Possible Genetic Basis of Autism

 

Hypothesis: Autism is caused by multiple recessive alleles in the homozygous state that confer an advantage in certain cognitive abilities in the heterozygous state.

 

Research proposal: It has been observed that many autistic children, so called savants, have extraordinary cognitive abilities, and yet they are generally impaired cognitively. No environmental factor has been identified to cause autism, so the cause of autism is likely genetic. There is no single “autism” gene, but multiple genes can be involved, each one potentially increasing the chance of autism. If the cause of autism is genetic, then there is likely manifestations of “autism” genes in the first-degree relatives of the autistic children, because they share many genes in common. We will test the hypothesis by studying the first-degree relatives of autistics, both savants and non-savants. We are looking for characteristics that are found in savants, except not nearly as extreme. These characteristics include: 1) great memory, 2) preoccupation with rules, 3) music ability, 4) mathematics skills. We will gather a large group of first-degree relatives of autistics and measure their ability in the following: 1) memory, 2) adherence to rules, 3) music, 4) mathematics, 5) social ability, 6) general IQ.

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If you would like to participate in the research, please fill out both the Confidentiality Form and the Research Questionnaire.

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Reference:

Mindblindness, by Simon Baron-Cohen, 1997

The Pattern Seekers, by Simon Baron-Cohen, 2020