Biochemical Strategies and Concepts

Abstract

There are critical problems of data interpretation in the field of biochemical research in autism. The excellent chapters by Coleman (Chapter 12) and Ritvo (Chapter 11) illustrate these problems very graphically. They also bring out the obvious fact that it is even more difficult to obtain meaningful results in this area when studying immature subjects than when working with adult populations. Compared with adults, body chemistry in children is more labile, more subject to variation from endogenous as well as exogenous factors, and, of course, more age-dependent. The question of controls is therefore crucial, but for ethical reasons even more difficult to solve satisfactorily than when investigating mature subjects. Further, since autism is not a disease entity but almost certainly a syndrome with different etiologies, the results of comparisons between different groups of children with behavioral abnormalities can become very difficult to interpret. Yet one feels certain that here, as in the major psychoses of adult life, metabolic factors may play some role in etiology and could be revealed if only one knew how best to display them.