{"id":168705,"date":"2023-07-30T20:23:22","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T01:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/new-research-clarifies-connection-between-autism-and-the-microbiome"},"modified":"2023-07-30T20:23:22","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T01:23:22","slug":"new-research-clarifies-connection-between-autism-and-the-microbiome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/07\/new-research-clarifies-connection-between-autism-and-the-microbiome","title":{"rendered":"New research clarifies connection between autism and the microbiome"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-research-clarifies-connection-between-autism-and-the-microbiome2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The biological roots of autism continue to perplex researchers, despite a growing body of studies looking at an increasing array of genetic, cellular and microbial data. Recently, scientists have homed in on a new and promising area of focus: the microbiome. This collection of microbes that inhabit the human gut has been shown to play a role in autism, but the mechanics of this link have remained awash in ambiguity.<\/p>\n<p>Taking a fresh computational approach to the problem, a study published today, June 26, in <i>Nature Neuroscience<\/i> sheds new light on the relationship between the microbiome and <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/autism\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">autism<\/a>. This research\u2014which originated at the Simons Foundation\u2019s Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) and involved an innovative reanalysis of dozens of previously published datasets\u2014aligns with a recent, long-term study of autistic individuals that centered on a microbiome-focused treatment intervention. These findings also underscore the importance of longitudinal studies in elucidating the interplay between the microbiome and complex conditions such as autism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were able to harmonize seemingly disparate data from different studies and find a common language with which to unite them. With this, we were able to identify a microbial signature that distinguishes autistic from neurotypical individuals across many studies,\u201d says Jamie Morton, one of the study\u2019s corresponding authors, who began this work while a postdoctoral researcher at the Simons Foundation and is now an independent consultant. \u201cBut the bigger point is that going forward, we need robust long-term studies that look at as many datasets as possible and understand how they change when there is a [therapeutic] intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The biological roots of autism continue to perplex researchers, despite a growing body of studies looking at an increasing array of genetic, cellular and microbial data. Recently, scientists have homed in on a new and promising area of focus: the microbiome. This collection of microbes that inhabit the human gut has been shown to play [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168705\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}