Autism Correlated to Parental Mental Illness

[Ixion]

I know autism is a hot topic, especially with many people concerned about what is the cause of autism. Here is a link to a news story by MSN highlighting a new study performed by Julie Daniels of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, linking autism with parents who have schizophrenia.

Child's autism linked to parents' mental illness

"Our research shows that mothers and fathers diagnosed with schizophrenia were about twice as likely to have a child diagnosed with autism," said Julie Daniels of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who worked on the study.

"We also saw higher rates of depression and personality disorders among mothers, but not fathers," she said in a statement.

....

No one knows what causes autism, but researchers think it is likely that several genes and possibly environmental factors contribute. Some autism advocates believe childhood vaccinations play a role, although most medical experts say it is extremely unlikely.

I am an immunologist, and based on the evidence from vaccine-linked autism, I think there is not a correlation. My nephew is being evaluated for autism, and his parents have some history of mental instability, so this new study is very interesting to me.

 

[Complexity]

I find it very interesting, also.

Unfortunately, many of those who have been happy to blame vaccines for autism are looking for a scapegoat, and they are not going to want to be put in that role.

 

[NewtonTrino]

Not an expert on this subject, but I thought there was some recent research about a particular virus (related to cat feces or something) that was somehow linked to schizophrenia. It would be interesting to see if there was any correlation to that in this case.

 

[Boo]

So being schizoprenic makes you twice as likely to have an autistic child. Wonderful. And those of us who aren't schizophrenic or have no family history of schizophrenia?

It's pretty much a given, as has been noted, that there is a genetic component. The rest is simply correlation at this point.



Boo

 

[Ixion]

NewtonTrino, I think what you are thinking of is Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that affects pregnant mothers. Of course, as with autism, there could be a genetic component as well, but it would be interesting to see if there is a correlation.

Boo, I think what makes this interesting is not necessarily that there is a correlation between mental deficiency of the parent and autism development in the child, but that these factors could lead to an identifiable genetic component. In a sense, the schizophrenic parents with autistic children are the experimental group, and parents with no mental deficiency with healthy children are the control group. The genetic comparison is what would lead to a better understanding of autism. Similarly, factors that contribute to cancer have been discovered this way.

 

[Dancing David]

Not an expert on this subject, but I thought there was some recent research about a particular virus (related to cat feces or something) that was somehow linked to schizophrenia. It would be interesting to see if there was any correlation to that in this case.

There are many paths to scizophrenia that involve in utero trauma during the second trimester, lysteria may be one, starvation and influenza are others.

 

[Dancing David]

Not bad, the study is 1,200 in the experimental group, that is fairly decent. But the doubling statistics would have to be examined more carefully.

 

[T.A.M.]

Does anyone have a link to the full study for review...This is interesting, but the study and it's validity should be evaluated.

TAM

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Without reading the full study, it is impossible to know, but what about counfounding factors here. Maybe children of people with mental health problems are more likely to be under close scrutiny by health and social services, and therefore things like asperger's syndrome are more likely to be identified than they are when they occur in the general population.

 

[T.A.M.]

Exactly, as well, if the Schizophrenics were not well controlled, then the environment for the child early in life could contribute...need to see the study itself.

TAM

 

[Dancing David]

Exactly, as well, if the Schizophrenics were not well controlled, then the environment for the child early in life could contribute...need to see the study itself.

TAM

Autism is a biological developmental disorder, the parental influence is minimal. The impact they can have is in social adaption of the child.

Informational comment only, not a criticism.

 

[ben m]

Here's the study:

Pediatrics. 2008 May;121(5):e1357-62.

 

[Chris Haynes]

Full paper here:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/121/5/e1357.pdf

 

[Deetee]

Can the stress of bringing up an autistic child detrimentally affect the mental health/psychological wellbeing of the mother/parents?

 

[HawkeyeMD]

Oh, good. Another potential scapegoat.

Thanks for publishing the links. It's a limited study, to be sure. There are two things that kind of jumped out at me: first, they looked at potential linkages to a whole lot of things, and found one that they got statistical relevance on. That doesn't mean that it's not real, but I'd still like to see something more solid.

Second, since the reason we are all hearing so much about autism is that it is supposed to be increasing by leaps and bounds, and schizophrenia has been pretty solid at 1% of the general population for basically as long as we've been keeping track, if the linkage is real at all, it can't apply to all types of autism; it would have to be only in certain cases. Not that that's not a possibility, of course. Also, on that note, what they should be asking is why the schizophrenia numbers were so LOW amongst their control group parents (.0038, if I am figuring that correctly?) as well as why the offspring autism rates were higher in the other group.

 

[GreyICE]

Were they diagnosed with mental illness before or after their child was born? Having the primary care parent of an autistic child develop mental illness, well, not entirely statistically unlikely (Stress increases the risk).

If this study wasn't carefully done, then the article only shows severe stress is a cause of mental illness.

Edit: After reading the paper, it seems that some of the diagnoses were before, and some of the diagnoses were after. Especially since they threw severe depression in there, I would desperately love to know what is what.

Oh, and from the study:

however,
the specific disorders associated with autism vary by
study and may reflect methodologic differences

Or may indicate confirmation bias.

Whole lot more needed here to be convincing.

 

[ben m]

Were they diagnosed with mental illness before or after their child was born? Having the primary care parent of an autistic child develop mental illness, well, not entirely statistically unlikely (Stress increases the risk).

If this study wasn't carefully done, then the article only shows severe stress is a cause of mental illness.

They specifically looked for that effect---and they had examples of both orderings and the effect was there in both datasets. They do say that the correlation is stronger in the kids-born-first, parent-diagnosed-second set (supporting the stress-causes-mental-illness hypothesis) but still present, and significant, in the other set (supporting the genetic hypothesis.)

The other complication, which they do address, is that after there's one diagnosis in your family (you with schizophrenia, your kid with autism, etc.) then you're "in the system"---and maybe being "in the system" makes it easier to get other family members diagnosed.