Ali Capener

BIOL 1615-018
Conner
10/20/16

What I chose for my article has to do with autism. It is titled In Search of Autisms Roots. It
was written by Liza Gross on PLOS Biology.
In this article, Liza mentions that for such a long time, autism has been seen as a disease
to be feared. It has been stigmatized for so long and in this article, she talks about how scientists
are working towards disproving that stigmatization and trying to get people to understand that
its a mental disorder and not something to be feared. You cant catch autism. It is something
youre born with.
In the article, Liza mentions Andrew Wakefield, the British gastroenterologist who wrote
a paper in 1998 explaining that autism was caused by vaccines. Since then, his paper has been
widely discredited by scientists and researchers. However, when it was released, it unleashed a
panicthat linked the measles virus in the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine to autism.
Believing that what Andrew Wakefield had to say was true, many people believed him.
Obviously, many celebrities have been very vocal about not vaccinating their children. Millions
of people all over the world believe that vaccinating their kids gives them a higher risk for
developing autism. As this article shows, that just isnt the case.

Researchers have discovered that since the cognitive abilities impaired in autism include
those that appear to be uniquely human its pretty easy to guess that autism is something
specific to humans alone. So what did the researchers decide to do? They decided to measure
gene expression patterns in the prefrontal cortex of humans, chimpanzees, and rhesus monkeys.
Seeing as the prefrontal cortex plays such an important role in cognitive functioning, they
thought this would be a good place to start. According to the article, interestingly, genes that
were uniquely involved in autism appear to evolve faster than other genes expressed in the
brain.
Essentially, this article tells us that researchers did tests on the prefrontal cortex to see
how gene expression patterns work there. They figured out that synaptic gene expression
peaked much earlier in the autistic group. Basically this article is explaining to us how autism
has to do with cognitive functioning and nothing at all to do with vaccines. Its almost like a PSA
saying that vaccinating your children can only help them.
In conclusion, this article searches to find autisms roots and it succeeds. Liza speaks
about what researchers have done and continue to do to destigmatize autism and show people its
not something to be feared. She ends the article saying that recent advances in research and
understanding autism better might be convincing parents that vaccines have nothing to do with
autism at all. Last year, Gallup reported that just six percent believe the myth.