Neuropsychologists Dr. Laura Jansons and Dr. Skip Hrin are joined by Dr. Robert Thatcher from Applied Neuroscience Inc.
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Topics Covered:
Topics Discussed Include how QEEG and Neurofeedback address:
PTSD
Concussions and NFL testing
Schools and Student testing
Insurance Issues. Parity Law
military uses
Suicide prevention
Robert Thatcher Bio
Ph.D.
Professor of Clinical Neuroscience
Dr. Robert Thatcher received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. in biopsychology from the University of Waterloo. From 1971-72, he was a NIH postdoctoral fellow in neurobiology and neurophysiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine before joining the faculties of New York Medical College and NYU School of Medicine. From 1979 to 1999, Dr. Thatcher was a professor of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland before joining the faculty of the National Institutes of Health as the program manager for the 1st 128 channel EEG system where he served on the National Institutes of Health Scientific Advisory Committee for the NIH Human Brain Map Project. From 1993 to 2006 Dr. Thatcher was the director of the NeuroImaging Laboratory at the Bay Pines VA Medical Center, Bay Pines, Florida, and was an adjunct professor in the Departments of Neurology and Radiology at the University of South Florida, He also was the EEG and MRI principal investigator for the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration Head Injury Program (DVHIP). In 1998 he was awarded the “Life Time Achievement Award for Work in the Scientific Specialty of QEEG”, by the American Board of Certification of Quantitative Electroencephalography, in 2008 he was the recipient of the AAPB “Hans Berger Award of Merit” and in 2009 he was awarded the ISNR “Life Time Achievement Award for work in EEG and Quantitative EEG”. He is the developer of NeuroGuide software for QEEG and Neurofeedback and is the author of over 200 publications, including eight books. His most recent books are the “Handbook of Quantitative Electroencephalography and EEG Biofeedback” and “Z Score Neurofeedback: Clinical Applications” (co-edited with Dr. Joel Lubar). He is currently the director of the Applied Neuroscience Research Institute and the President & CEO of Applied Neuroscience, Inc.
Dr. Skip Article
New evidence links vitamin D and testosterone to autism risk in boys
A compelling 2016 study, led by a research team from the University of Queensland (UQ), provided strong evidence to suggest pregnant women who were vitamin D deficient at 20 weeks gestation were more likely to have a child with autistic traits by the age of six. A new study from the same team is now homing in on the causal mechanisms that could explain this association.
“The biological cause of autism spectrum disorder is unknown but we have shown that one of the many risk factors – low vitamin D in mothers – causes an increase in testosterone in the brain of the male fetuses, as well as the maternal blood and amniotic fluid,” explains Darryl Eyles, from the UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute.
Why boys are three times more likely to develop ASD than girls has been a mystery for many years. One explanation, dubbed the “prenatal sex steroid” hypothesis, suggests excessive prenatal exposure to testosterone could contribute to the development of ASD.
This new study, published in the journal Molecular Autism, explored the relationship between vitamin D and testosterone levels. In animal models the researchers showed how vitamin D deficiency leads to a particular response in male fetuses only.
“In addition to its role in calcium absorption, vitamin D is crucial to many developmental processes,” says Eyles. “Our research also showed that in vitamin D-deficient male fetuses, an enzyme which breaks down testosterone was silenced and could be contributing to the presence of high testosterone levels.”
This study is the first to offer a robust mechanism showing how a vitamin D deficiency can directly lead to increased testosterone levels in the brains of male fetuses. There are still, however, many unanswered questions surrounding exactly how increased exposure to testosterone in utero can lead to ASD in male children.
“Testosterone is key early factor and plays important role in the development of sexually dimorphic brain regions in human and also has profound effects on several neuronal processes during brain development such as neurogenesis, migration and immune functions,” the researchers hypothesize in the newly published study. “This remains an intense area of research.”
Eyles notes this relationship between vitamin D and testosterone is likely only one of many factors that could heighten ASD risk. Further research is necessary to not only understand how increased levels of testosterone could influence ASD development, but also to explore what other known ASD risk factors may have this effect on fetal testosterone.
“We have only studied one risk factor for ASD – vitamin D deficiency during development – our next step is to look at other possible risk factors, such as maternal stress and hypoxia – lack of oxygen – and see if they have the same effect,” says Eyles.
The new study was published in the journal Molecular Autism.
Source: University of Queensland
