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Nicholas Wade reports on new and unexpected findings in the study of one type of autism in today's New York Times. Rett syndrome is unusual in that it is caused by alterations in a single gene and affects mostly girls. Typically, girls with Rett syndrome develop normally until about age three or so, then become progressively disabled, showing characteristic losses in development, ability to interact with their environment and coordination. Rett syndrome is associated with alterations in the gene MECP2.
The present work suggests that the neurological findings associated with Rett Syndrome may be reversible, if the activity of MECP2 can be restored even at fairly advanced age, at least in mice. This is contrary to common wisdom, which holds that neurological development proceeds as a series of opening and closing developmental "windows" and that the consequence of missing one of these developmental windows is that the associated function is lost or significantly limited from that point forward. Papers that outline the approach that led to these surprising results were published independently in Science by Dr. Adrian Bird and Dr. Guy Jacky and in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Dr. Rudolph Jaenisch and colleagues.