- MONDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) — Parents of children with autism have
double the odds of having been hospitalized for a psychiatric condition
than parents of children without autism, according to a comprehensive
review of Swedish medical registries.

Eventually, the information may provide a way for experts to start
untangling the complex genetic and environmental interactions involved in
different psychiatric conditions, including autism.

“The study suggests there is no evidence of specific transmission of
specific psychiatric disorders — i.e. schizophrenia, depression and
personality disorders — across generations, but that there is more a
complex genetic diathesis, a genetic vulnerability, which increases the
risk for autism and perhaps other psychiatric illness mediated by unknown
developmental and psychosocial variables that are associated with the
'turning on and off' of certain genes,” explained one expert, Dr. Jon
Shaw, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of
Miami Miller School of Medicine.

“This study might help us pinpoint some more genetic ties to more cases
[of autism],” added study lead author Julie Daniels, assistant professor
of epidemiology and maternal and child health at the University of North
Carolina, in Chapel Hill.

She and her colleagues published their research in the May issue of
Pediatrics.

The study was most notable for its size, incorporating data on 1,237
children born in Sweden between 1977 and 2003 who had been diagnosed with
autism before the age of 10, as well as about 31,000 controls.

Both mothers and fathers with schizophrenia were roughly twice as
likely to have a child with autism, the study found.

Only mothers with depression and neurotic and personality disorders (as
opposed to fathers) had an increased risk of having a child diagnosed with
autism.

The study confirms previous, smaller studies that found that
psychiatric disorders were more common among blood relations of people
with autism. A strong genetic component is suspected for autism, a
developmental disorder.

“The study . . . will stimulate further research by its suggestion that
mental disorders are more complex than our simple-minded categorical
approach to diagnosis,” Shaw said. “Boundaries between diagnoses are less
clear, and we need to take a more developmental approach to our
understanding of psychiatric illness if we want to understand their
complexities.”

“I do think it will help us redefine the case definitions [of autism],”
Daniels added.

A second study in the same issue of the journal found that children
whose mothers had certain infections during pregnancy (bladder infection,
diarrhea, cough or vaginal yeast infection) were more likely to develop
epilepsy.

The exact reasons for the association are unclear, said a group of
researchers based in Denmark, but there is some evidence to suggest that
infections occurring during pregnancy may interfere with fetal brain
development.

More information

Visit the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and
Stroke for more on autism.