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Environmental Factors in Autism

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impairments in communication and social behavior, and by repetitive behaviors. Although genetic factors might be largely responsible for the occurrence of autism they cannot fully account for all cases and it is likely that in addition to a c...

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Autor principal: Grabrucker, Andreas M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3548163/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23346059
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2012.00118
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author Grabrucker, Andreas M.
author_facet Grabrucker, Andreas M.
author_sort Grabrucker, Andreas M.
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description Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impairments in communication and social behavior, and by repetitive behaviors. Although genetic factors might be largely responsible for the occurrence of autism they cannot fully account for all cases and it is likely that in addition to a certain combination of autism-related genes, specific environmental factors might act as risk factors triggering the development of autism. Thus, the role of environmental factors in autism is an important area of research and recent data will be discussed in this review. Interestingly, the results show that many environmental risk factors are interrelated and their identification and comparison might unveil a common scheme of alterations on a contextual as well as molecular level. For example, both, disruption in the immune system and in zinc homeostasis may affect synaptic transmission in autism. Thus, here, a model is proposed that interconnects the most important and scientifically recognized environmental factors. Moreover, similarities in how these risk factors impact synapse function are discussed and a possible influence on an already well described genetic pathway leading to the development of autism via zinc homeostasis is proposed.
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spelling pubmed-35481632013-01-23 Environmental Factors in Autism Grabrucker, Andreas M. Front Psychiatry Psychiatry Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impairments in communication and social behavior, and by repetitive behaviors. Although genetic factors might be largely responsible for the occurrence of autism they cannot fully account for all cases and it is likely that in addition to a certain combination of autism-related genes, specific environmental factors might act as risk factors triggering the development of autism. Thus, the role of environmental factors in autism is an important area of research and recent data will be discussed in this review. Interestingly, the results show that many environmental risk factors are interrelated and their identification and comparison might unveil a common scheme of alterations on a contextual as well as molecular level. For example, both, disruption in the immune system and in zinc homeostasis may affect synaptic transmission in autism. Thus, here, a model is proposed that interconnects the most important and scientifically recognized environmental factors. Moreover, similarities in how these risk factors impact synapse function are discussed and a possible influence on an already well described genetic pathway leading to the development of autism via zinc homeostasis is proposed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-01-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3548163/ /pubmed/23346059 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2012.00118 Text en Copyright © 2013 Grabrucker. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.
spellingShingle Psychiatry
Grabrucker, Andreas M.
Environmental Factors in Autism
title Environmental Factors in Autism
title_full Environmental Factors in Autism
title_fullStr Environmental Factors in Autism
title_full_unstemmed Environmental Factors in Autism
title_short Environmental Factors in Autism
title_sort environmental factors in autism
topic Psychiatry
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3548163/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23346059
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2012.00118
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