Feb. 17, 2010 • No.

3 • From the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative

Director's column: Fever's promising puzzle

Cori Bargmann joins SFARI scientific advisory board
Workshop report: Sequencing the SSC
New SFARI website makes commenting easier
Variants in trust hormone receptor up the risk for autism
Simons investigator profile: Guoping Feng

Director's column: Fever's promising puzzle

In his latest column, SFARI director Gerald Fischbach discusses the concept
that fever can improve cognitive function and behavior in individuals with
autism. A prospective survey conducted by Andrew Zimmerman and his group
at the Kennedy Krieger Institute documented decreases in hyperactivity,
irritability and stereotypy, as well as improved speech in 30 probands with
fevers above 100.4 F. A preliminary survey of families enrolled in the Simons
Simplex Collection indicates that as many as 25 percent of parents report
similar improvements when their children are febrile. Fischbach reviews the complex literature that
links the hypothalamus, the locus ceruleus and the 'social brain' to explore the hypothesis regarding
fever's beneficial effects.

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Cori Bargmann joins SFARI scientific advisory board

The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) is pleased to
announce that Cori Bargmann, Torsten N. Wiesel Professor at Rockefeller
University, has joined its scientific advisory board. Dr. Bargmann's research
focuses on how the environment, experience and the biology of the brain
interact to shape an animal's behavior. She is particularly interested in how
genes influence neural pathways and behavior.

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Workshop report: Sequencing the SSC

 As the number of available DNA samples continues to increase and the cost of
sequencing continues to drop, one can't help but want to capture all of the
genetic variation that might be contributing to autism susceptibility in these
families. Toward this end, SFARI organized a one-day workshop on the
prospects for sequencing samples from the Simons Simplex Collection.

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New SFARI website makes commenting easier

Visitors to the SFARI website will notice a host of new features, including the
ability to easily comment on news and blog articles. We welcome comments
from users either anonymously, or by creating a user id and password at
id.sfari.org. Other enhancements to the site include an improved frontpage
slideshow that showcases news on the latest autism research.

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Variants in trust hormone receptor up the risk for autism

Genetic variations that tweak the brain's release of oxytocin — a hormone
involved in social bonding and establishing trust — may increase the risk of
developing autism or autistic traits, according to three new studies published
in the past few months.

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Simons investigator profile: Guoping Feng

Guoping Feng's perseverance has proven a boon to the hundreds of
neuroscientists who rely on his most celebrated scientific achievement: two
dozen mouse strains engineered to have brightly colored brain cells. By
creating the first robust mouse model of obsessive-compulsive disorder, Feng
has also found a way to study repetitive behaviors, one of the three core
characteristics of autism.

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