New gene networks discovered in autism may help improve treatment

A new research has revealed three gene families relating to autism that might help adopt new approaches for developing new autism drugs or repurposing existing drugs for better treatment.

Furthermore, one of the autism related gene pathways also affects some patients with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and schizophrenia raising the possibility that a class of drugs may treat particular subsets of all three neurological disorders.

Hakon Hakonarson, Ph.D. said that Neurodevelopment disorders are extremely heterogeneous, both clinically and genetically but they are trying to find common biological patterns among across disease categories which strongly imply that focusing on underlying molecular defects might help devising therapies.

He further explained that even though the study was extensive but it includes only about 20 percent of genes causing Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) so advance studies are needed to unravel the genetic landscape of autism in a better way.

The study is published in Nature Communications.