Initial Studies of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Treatment for Autism are Encouraging

uuuhh. I think that you are crazy. Why would you not want to cure such a serious disease as autism. Autism is brain damage and not trying to help individuals struggling with it is cruel. Maybe you should go watch an autistic child on the playground or worse watch a lonely autistic teenager, it’s very sad. You have obviously bought into such strange thinking to make yourself feel better. Do you actively lobby to not cure cancer, too. You are sick!!!

Maggie – My blog says “here is a treatment that may be useful in managing some of the more painful and difficult symptoms associated with autism.” I think you’re reading an awful lot into that.

What concerns me about your response is that it implies that a drug or a treatment could cure loneliness, or change human beings so that they are no longer subject to bullying. It also suggests that autistic thinking should be medicated away, as if it were a cancer. But no drug can magically change the human condition. Loneliness is not exclusive to autism, nor is isolation, confusion, or anxiety.

Obviously, there are aspects of autism that are painful – and I can’t imagine that anyone who could treat those symptoms would not. TMS may, possibly, be helpful along those lines. But there are many people with autism who would not want to change the way they think.

Autism is not like cancer – simply a deadly disease. It is many things to many people. For some, it’s a curse. For others, it’s a difference. As the mom of a child with autism, I’ve seen the ups, downs, highs and lows – and I can’t say for sure whether (assuming I had the right) I would hand my child a “cure.”

Lisa (autism guide)

Well, I agree that it’s nice to see a focus on the problematic symptoms of ASD, instead of a discussion of “cure” or “recovery.”　However, if you’re going to reprint a section of the article that claims success, I think it’s important to find out that a non-blinded n=13 “study” without any normed methods for measuring symptoms is a far cry from proof of efficacy.

Just saying.

There’s nothing in my post (or even in the original press release) that says this study is “proof of efficacy.” It’s just an encouraging step in a long process.

It’s nice to SEE an encouraging step toward a potentially useful treatment.

Of course, it’s quite possible that, down the line, it will NOT be proven efficacious.

Lisa (autism guide)

“It’s nice to SEE an encouraging step . . . ”

It would be even nicer to see recognized standards of scientific and medical research applied to the field of autism (for a change).

Right on, Morgan! Casanova’s research smells like junk science to me. Here’s four questions I have:

1. Magnetic fields in the brain are due to electrical currents. How do you switch the magnetization, unless you switch the direction the current is flowing?

2. How does changing the magnetic field of the cortex insulate the mini columns? This is just scientific-sounding mumbo jumbo meant to dazzle parents, but with no apparent meaning.

3. How does an AC magnetic field uniformly switch the magnetization of anything? You could switch some magnetizations, but not all. A physical analogy would be shaking a box of quarters that are heads up and making them all switch to heads down. You could randomize the coins, but you aren’t going to uniformly flip them all from heads to tails.

4. Assume that one can reverse the magnetic field in the cortex, why don’t people see an effect upon using an MRI, whose magnetic field is at least 1000 times larger?

A researcher as ill informed about the
experiment he is doing as Dr. Casanova should not be allowed near children. This study is a perfect example of why we need to be very, very careful about which studies we call “promising”.

Autism is not brain damage for starters. Since no one knows the cause, no one can say it’s a disease, either. Also, besides a teenager with autism, there are lonely typical teen aged kids too. Autism also doesn’t have a mortality rate, however it does have an emotional rate more so on the parents end. Not every one is looking for a cure-all for their child, and it’s not so crazy of them, either.

This study is interesting, being it seems to relieve some symptoms associated with autism that doesn’t seem as evasive as other’s. The interesting thing about such studies is when if ever it’s released to the public, how obtainable would it be for the every day family.

Did Casanova use a control group? If not, how could he know that his wondrous magnetic coils relieved any symptoms of autism?

Morgan and Autism News Beat –

One wonders if anyone bothered to look up the credentials of the researcher?

http://136.165.150.3/people/casanova/index.html

Johns Hopkins
Sinai
National Institute of Health

If his work is gooblygook, he has successfully fooled the publishers and peer reviewers of:

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Journal of Neuroscience Methods
Neuroscience
Autism
Brain Pathology
Annals of Neurology

to name a few.

His name is all over a vareity of publications on the physical differences in the brains of people with autism and other disorders.

White matter volume increase and minicolumns in autism

Neocortical modularity and the cell minicolumn.

Magnetic resonance imaging study of brain asymmetries in dyslexic patients

Effect of minicolumnar disturbance on dyslexic brains: an MRI study

Minicolumnar abnormalities in autism.

Neuropathological and genetic findings in autism: the significance of a putative minicolumnopathy

Classification techniques for autistic vs. typically developing brain using MRI data

Those are just a subset from the last five years. But two internet gawkers have the gaul to call him up as a junk scientist, or ineed, that he is ill informed speaks more towards you, than his work, or its potential to help children with autism. Shame on you.

- pD

The press release I mentioned is preliminary, and I do not yet have the details of the study. When it’s available, we’ll be better able to look at the details of the research to determine whether it was properly managed. Given Casanova’s background and credentials, I suspect that he developed an appropriate protocol, but of course I can’t swear to that at this point.

Just for the record, TMS is not a crackpot treatment – it’s an established treatment for a variety of problems. Whether or not it’s helpful for autism, of course, remains to be seen.

Lisa (autism guide)

I must concur with our (fearless!) guide here — TMS is a young science but in no way a crackpot one. The FDA has recently approved this treatment for drug-resistant depression, and research is currently ongoing at several MAJOR universities and hospitals in Boston, New York and Philadelphia for the use of TMS in the treatment of autism, bipolar and adhd. Having followed Casanova’s work from afar for several years now, the commentary about finding a cure is ironic — a few years back some in the Aspie community became alarmed that the positive response some test subjects were experiencing would lead the medical community and some parents to try to fix something that was not broken — and actually implored Casanova not to try to “cure” anything!

Morgan and Autism News Beat;
I have researched TMS for awhile. It has had large studies done in the area of depression. The first studies used to high of a field and did induced seizers in a few participants. The studies of TMS after that used a lower dose and the seizure incidents went away.TMS was set to be FDA approved for Depression last year but then was held up because of the chance of seizers at high dosage. Right now the only other treatment for depression if drugs do not work for you is ECT which is the applying electricity to the scalp to induce a seizure. Funny huh. I was scheduled to be part of a study using TMS when funding was dropped because of the hold up at the FDA.
Mr Casanova is not the first person to use TMS with Autism it is used in England but usually with very sever cases of autism. It has shown to be a treatment in those case but not long lasting and TMS application must be continued.
http://www.google.com/search?q=TMS+depression&rls=com.microsoft:*:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADBF is the web page for Googling TMS and Depression.
By the way please read up on something before you ATTACK a moderator/blogger. Lisa like most of us has enough stress in their lives. It’s one thing to disagree and another to personally attack someone because you disagree with them. You owe Lisa an apology for your inappropriate behavior.
V

Maggie,

My son is not brain damaged. I hope that you do not have a child on the spectrum. I would feel very bad for that child to have a mother that thinks they are brain damaged.

here is a link of other work being done in this area – that may be of interest – this study has worked mostly with Aspergian adults. Sharing info can hopefully help everyone understand

http://jerobison.blogspot.com/2008/11/summary-of-my-tms-posts.html

Bonjorno, autism.about.com!
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