Gainesville Music Therapy - Special Needs Research/News: 06/01/2007

Special Needs Research and News

Gainesville Music Therapy parents receive frequent e-mails with the articles of interest to the special needs community, including research on Autism, Down Syndrome, ADHD, etc.; conferences and trainings being offered in the local area; and information on music therapy practice. If you would like to receive these articles, and/or our monthly newsletter by e-mail, please e-mail us to join the mailing list.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Music Therapy Helps "Soul Sisters" Cope With Speech Loss

June 13, 2007

They suffer from debilitating health conditions that severely restrict speech and movement. But a Bronx music program is helping some patients get past some of their toughest challenges. NY1 Health & Fitness reporter Kafi Drexel filed the following report.

Staff at the Beth Abraham Family of Health Services in The Bronx call a group of ladies there the "Soul Sisters.”

One might say the meaning of that name probably goes beyond the songs they sing. They're dealing with serious medical conditions from emphysema, to Parkinson's, and complications from strokes. But the tunes they belt out in their therapy program could be helping them work beyond some of the most debilitating effects each of their conditions creates.

“We see the effects of music therapy every day on a great variety of patients,” says Dr. Concetta Tomaino of Beth Abraham. “So, it's our hope in doing programs like the Soul Sisters and engaging people through music therapy to really advance not only their quality of life, but really their ability to recover function and to use the function that they still have in more effective ways.”

Music therapist Marah Bobilin, who works closely with the group, says one of the key areas of improvement is with speech.

“They can really communicate with each other in real time,” says Bobilin. “Sometimes with aphasia and other speech problems it takes a very long time just to say one word, to get something out.”

Jane Kirby is living with advanced Parkinson's. Once an actress and classically-trained pianist, she says working on becoming more verbal has a lot of meaning for her.

“I have a lot of people in my life remarkably and I communicate with them,” says Kirby.

The people here at Beth Abraham say what's amazing the Soul Sisters is not only how music is helping them with some of their physical disabilities, but also the fact that before joining the group, many of them have never even picked up an instrument before.

“One of the interesting things we're finding and it's unusual because people thing you have to be musically-talented to be musically-creative and what we're finding in the years of engaging people in music therapy is that people in general are very creative and music can be available to almost anybody who has the time and the encouragement to use it,” says Tomaino.

For more information on the program, contact:

Institute for Music and Neurologic Function
612 Allerton Avenue
Bronx, NY 10467
(718) 519-5840
www.imnf.org
info@bethabe.org

– Kafi Drexel

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Scientists Reverse Symptoms of Autism in Mice

06.25.07, 12:00 AM ET

MONDAY, June 25 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists may have uncovered a way to reverse symptoms of mental retardation and autism in mice.

Researchers from the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) genetically manipulated the mice to model Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), which is the leading inherited cause of mental retardation and the most common genetic cause of autism.

FXS is tied to a mutated X chromosome gene called the fragile X mental retardation 1 ( FMR1) gene. When this gene is mutated, it can cause mild learning disabilities to severe autism.

"Our study suggests that inhibiting a certain enzyme in the brain could be an effective therapy for countering the debilitating symptoms of FXS in children, and possibly in autistic kids as well," study co-author Mansuo L. Hayashi, a former Picower Institute postdoctoral fellow currently at Merck Research Laboratories in Boston, said in a prepared statement.

The enzyme that was inhibited in this study is called p21-activated kinase, or PAK, and it affects the number, size and shape of connections between neurons and the brain.

When PAK's activity was halted, the brain abnormalities in the FXS mice were reversed.

"Strikingly, PAK inhibition also restored electrical communication between neurons in the brains of the FXS mice, correcting their behavioral abnormalities in the process," co-author Susumu Tonegawa, 1987 Nobel laureate and Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience, said in a prepared statement.

Tonegawa said that there are known chemical compounds that can inhibit the activity of PAK, which is something that may be useful in developing drugs to treat FXS.

The FXS mice showed abnormalities similar to those in FXS patients, including hyperactivity, purposelessness, repetitive movements, attention deficits, and difficulty with learning and memory.

When the activity of PAK was inhibited, these abnormalities were partially or fully ameliorated.

"Notably, due to an elegant genetic manipulation of method employed by the Picower Institute researchers, PAK inhibition in the FXS mice did not take place until a few weeks after appearance of disease symptoms. This implies that future treatment may still be effective even after symptoms are already pronounced," Tonegawa said.

The findings were reported in the June 25-29 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

More information

The National Autism Association has more about autism.

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UCLA Study First to Show Autistic Brains Can Be Trained to Recognize Visual and Vocal Cues

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - To understand the meaning of a conversation, kids automatically do what adults do ---besides processing the meaning of words, they unconsciously "read" the expression on a person's face and listen to their tone of voice, then integrate that information with the context at hand to discern meaning, be it humor, anger, irony or straightforwardness.

Individuals with autism typically don't do this. They often miss the subtle meanings conveyed by a person's face and tone of voice, and thus have trouble determining the communicative intent of others. Neuroimaging studies have backed this up, showing that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) --- including autism, pervasive developmental disorder and Asperger's syndrome --- show reduced activity in the regions of the brain that respond to such cues.

But what if those brain regions could be trained to respond appropriately? In a report in the current issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry and currently online, UCLA researchers did just that. Providing ASD children with explicit instructions to pay more attention to facial expressions and tone of voice elicited an increased response in the medial prefrontal cortex, part of the brain's network for understanding the intentions of others.

"That's significant. The fact that you can 'normalize' activity in this region in the ASD group by directing their attention to these important social cues clearly indicates there's nothing intrinsically wrong with this region in the autistic brain," said Mirella Dapretto, associate professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and a member of the UCLA Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center. Dapretto co-authored the study with her former graduate student Ting Wang, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

"This is a very positive thing," Dapretto said, "because these findings have implications for future interventions --- they suggest that you could train the autistic brain to make use of the information conveyed by the human face and voice to successfully navigate social interactions."

Autism is a complex neurobiological disorder of development that affects one of every 150 children, impairing communication and social skills. ASDs encompass a broad spectrum of disorders that range from mild to severe.

The authors had two goals in mind with their study. One was to examine the neural circuitry in the brain that underlies the problems ASD children face in interpreting communicative intent. The other was to determine whether explicit instructions to pay attention to facial expressions and tone of voice would elicit more normal patterns of brain activity in these children.

While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), 18 ASD boys between the ages of 7 and 17, as well as a control group of 18 typically developing (TD) boys, viewed cartoon drawings of children in conversational settings while listening to short vignettes that ended with a potentially ironic remark. Researchers found that, compared with the TD control group, the ASD children had reduced activity in two areas of the brain --- the medial prefrontal cortex and right superior temporal gyrus. But when the researchers gave both groups explicit instructions to pay attention to the speaker's facial expression and tone of voice, only the ASD children showed a significant increase in activity in the medial prefrontal cortex.

"The typically developing kids recognized and interpreted these cues automatically when trying to infer if a speaker's remark was sincere or sarcastic, so their brains were already responding appropriately," said Dapretto. "But not so with the ASD kids, who did not show activity in this area when specific instructions weren't provided. This is the first study to show that you can normalize activity in a key region of the so-called 'social brain' in individuals with autism by simply directing their attention to these important social cues."

Other authors of the study included Susan S. Lee and Marian Sigman. The research was funded by the National Alliance for Autism Research, the Cure Autism Now Foundation, the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, and grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

The Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA is an interdisciplinary research and education institute devoted to the understanding of complex human behavior, including the genetic, biological, behavioral and sociocultural underpinnings of normal behavior and the causes and consequences of neuropsychiatric disorders. In addition to conducting fundamental research, the institute faculty seeks to develop effective treatments for neurological and psychiatric disorders, improve access to mental health services and shape national health policy regarding neuropsychiatric disorders.

www.HealthNewsDigest.com

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Autism Link to Vaccines Argued in Federal Court

Editor: Bob Carroll, Attorney at Law

Firm: Tampa Injury Law Firm.

June 14, 2007

By Staff Writer

The test case of Michelle Cedillo, argued in a special Federal "vaccine court" this week, explores autism's potential link to the preservative thimerosal in vaccines administered to young children. The first few test cases of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington will decide the fate of some 5,000 other families, all of whom maintain that the mercury content of thimerosal, a preservative found in most measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccines, caused their children to become severely autistic and to suffer from numerous other unrelated illnesses.

Cedillo's mother asserted in Federal court that within days of being administered her MMR vaccines, Michelle suffered from high fever and autistic symptoms. Doctors subsequently evaluated her and suggested that she would need to be institutionalized because of her severe autism.

Numerous epidemiological studies on thimerosal and the link to autism have revealed no conclusive causal connection. Trenchant arguments aside, the burden of proof for these test cases is easier to meet than in traditional personal injury cases. Petitioners need only prove that it is "more likely than not" that the vaccines caused their injuries. Argument in the Cedillo case will last about a month, and then attorneys will proceed on to the next of nine overall test cases.

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Many sides of autism

By LIDIA WASOWICZ

SAN FRANCISCO, May 11 (UPI) -- On the question of extraneous physical problems that beset many children with autism, many practitioners and parents are starting to come together.

Mainstream medicine is beginning to pay serious attention to, and act upon, parents' long-dismissed contention that something other than the disorder itself is affecting their children's health.

An increasing number of specialists have started to aggressively treat and study the relevance to autism of medical conditions -- including acid reflux, diarrhea and other gastrointestinal ailments, sleep disturbances, food allergies and metabolic irregularities that make it difficult for the body to adequately break down certain biochemicals.

These maladies are commonly experienced by autistic children and may be contributing to their behavioral problems but often go undetected due to lack of physician awareness and patient articulation, doctors say.

A major move toward correcting that oversight has come with the establishment by six leading hospitals of the Autism Treatment Network.

Among priorities topping its agenda, the group is drawing up national guidelines for providing autistic children with physical examinations complete enough to catch any underlying medical conditions. It also plans to conduct clinical trials to identify problems that are most likely to affect this patient group.

One large and largely overlooked health issue facing children, especially adolescents, with autism is common to most American youth: failure to stay in shape, according to a six-year Indiana University review.

Just like all youngsters, those with autism spectrum disorders can give their bodies and minds a lift by kicking up their activity level. However, they are given an even skimpier possibility than their peers to exercise their right to fitness, the researchers said.

Many districts have eliminated or minimized structured school-based opportunities for burning calories and building muscle, such as recess and physical education. In addition, community-based programs frequently are thin on trained staff and support services needed by autistic youngsters.

Young people with autism spectrum disorders often aren't in the running for team sports which require a quick pickup on social cues to keep the game moving.

What's more, having no physical disability, they do not qualify for such events as wheelchair racing or Special Olympics, although some have succeeded in getting exemptions, the authors noted.

What may fit the bill for these athletes-in-waiting are individual or two-person sports, such as swimming, tennis, running and martial arts, doctors advised. Such activities provide a touch of the social element without making heavy demands for personal contact, they advised.

(Note: In this multi-part installment, based on dozens of reports, conferences and interviews, Ped Med is keeping an eye on autism, taking a backward glance at its history and surrounding controversies, facing facts revealed by research and looking forward to treatment enhancements and expansions. Wasowicz is the author of the new book, "Suffer the Child: How the Healthcare System Is Failing Our Future," published by Capital Books.)

Next: The problem of healthcare access.

UPI Consumer Health welcomes comments on this column. E-mail: lwasowicz@upi.com.

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