Mother’s Blood May Carry the Secret to One Type of Autism

Stacey AlexeeffBiostats Alum Stacy Alexeeff, (PhD ’13), currently at Kaiser Permanente, worked with a team of researchers from The Mind Institute at UC Davis to publish a recent study showing that autoantibody binding to nine specific combinations of proteins (known as MAR ASD patterns) successfully predicts autism in previously diagnosed children.

Maternal autoantibody–related autism spectrum disorder (MAR ASD) is marked by specific maternal antibodies that react to certain proteins in the fetal brain. Examining the plasma of expecting mothers, the research team found mothers with reactivity to one of the nine MAR ASD patterns were eight times as likely to have a child diagnosed with autism.

For more on the study, check out the article in in Neuroscience News.