A man got very excited when he came upon the poster detailing Heather Garman’s study at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C. That’s because he had autism spectrum disorder and co-occurring depression — the type of patient Garman, a PhD candidate in the integrative neuroscience program at New York’s Stony Brook University, is studying in her research.
According to her preliminary results, individuals who have both autism spectrum disorder and depression are different than those who have just one or the other — and inflammation of a certain protein may be one of the causes. There isn’t treatment for these individuals currently, nor is much known about why or how depression in autism spectrum disorder develops.
To find a marker for inflammation, researchers looked at the c-reactive protein, which is found in blood and flows through the brain. They saw this protein was elevated in people with both depression and autism versus those with just autism. They hope to get more subjects to confirm that depression in autism spectrum disorder is indeed a distinct clinical entity biologically.
Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disability associated with social, behavioral and communication struggles. The diagnosis now covers disorders previously diagnosed separately, like autistic disorder and Asperger syndrome.
Garman says a lot of people don’t know that there’s a high prevalence among adults with autism spectrum disorder who also have co-occurring depression. About 50,000 people with autism spectrum disorder become adults every year, she says.
Researchers also looked for differences in individuals on the spectrum who also have depression versus those with only major depressive disorder. They found no difference in social motivation (i.e. desire to interact) or social anhedonia (a lack of pleasure you get from social interactions), which surprised Garman. Though they didn’t see differences behaviorally, they did see differences in major neurotransmitters in the brain. The biological differences suggest the brains of these groups of people don’t function the same way.
The take-home message of the study? This autism spectrum disorder and depression cohort may really be a distinct entity.
“I think biologically we are gonna find neurotransmitters and possibly markers of inflammation that are associated with that, and hopefully we’ll be able to develop treatments because of it,” Garman says.
Next steps in research include getting more participants and looking at the same measures, in addition to examining other metrics of inflammation linked to both depression and autism. Researchers also just submitted a request for institutional review board approval to include women in the study, since they’ve so far only looked at men.
Approximately 1 in 68 children has autism spectrum disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the U.S., major depression remains one of the most common mental disorders, per the National Institute of Mental Health.
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Here’s the Latest Research on Autism Spectrum Disorder and Depression originally appeared on usnews.com
