UCLA/Geschwind lab UCLA scientists measured the expression levels of more than 20,000 genes in tissue samples from autistic and healthy brains. When the samples were grouped by expression patterns, most autistic brains (red bar at top, left) showed a striking overlap.

A new UCLA study has pinpointed how autism impacts the brain at the molecular level, leading to striking differences between an autistic brain and a healthy one. And though causes of the disorder appear highly individual, common patterns emerging in this study offer a tiny glimmer of hope.

Researchers examined brain tissue samples (obtained after death) from 19 autism patients and 17 healthy volunteers. They found three prominent patterns.

While the frontal (responsible for judgment, creativity, emotions and speech) and temporal (devoted to hearing, language and processing sounds) lobes of healthy brains behave differently and are easy to tell apart at the genetic level, those two regions in most of the autistic brains examined were strikingly similar. Most of the features that distinguish the two regions seemed to have disappeared.

The autistic brains also showed a drop in the levels of genes responsible for neuron function and communication.

Finally, the autistic brains had higher levels of the genes involved in immune function and inflammatory response.

Study first author Irina Voineagu, a UCLA postdoctoral fellow in neurology, says that the study did not include any patients with Aspergers Syndrome, and that interestingly, the few autistic patients whose brains did not show genetic changes were at the higher-functioning end of the spectrum.

One of the biggest challenges to those hoping to find treatment or a cure for autism is that its causes seem to be different in virtually every patient. “At the DNA sequence level, we know that there are different causes for different people,” says Voineagu. But this study suggests that at the RNA level (RNA regulates proteins that perform specific tasks within cells), there are common patterns. “If there is some commonality,” Voineagu explains, “it would be easier to define therapy.”

The study was published online May 25 in Nature.

From left, Adam Faze, Ashli Marino, Marlee Galper, Becca Madnick, Erin Orbach and Rachel Lohmann volunteer with the Inspired Teens program at Vista Del Mar.

Marlee Galper didn’t know a thing about autism, but two summers ago she agreed to help out at a Westside day camp for teens with the disorder. It changed her life.

“I didn’t really know what autism was at all,” says Galper, who is now a senior in high school. “I didn’t know what to expect. I was just jumping into it. I had no idea that some of them couldn’t talk, and that some of them would be really hyper and not be able to focus.”

The staff at the Vista Inspire Program, one of the many offerings at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services, were ready with plenty of tips and advice to help get the teen volunteers ready for whatever might come up. The program brings children with autism and other special needs together with therapeutic dance, drama, voice, music and musical theater experiences.

And Galper says she found the experience exciting, even transformative, like Alice in Wonderland falling down the rabbit hole. “It steps you into a whole other world,” she says of working with kids on the autism spectrum. “You meet all of these amazing people who have all of these out-of-the-box ideas. It opens your eyes to so many new ways of dealing with problems.”

Unfortunately, fear of the unknown shapes many people’s ideas about children with autism. “I feel like people almost think autism is scary,” says Galper. But though they might not speak, Galper says these children do communicate, sometimes with their whole bodies, sometimes even through songs. “They’re not scary at all,” she says. Read on …