Illustration by Laurène Boglio

Ready for your weekly recap of autism research tweets?

First up in this edition of Spectrum’s Community Newsletter, the cover of The Lancet on 15 January featured a quote from the journal’s recent commission on the future of autism care and clinical research.

On this week’s cover, a quote from The Lancet Commission on the future of care & clinical research in #autism: https://t.co/4GotrTcBmO

Access the new issue: https://t.co/VSFYpk0XVt pic.twitter.com/XKwsUIZLJf

— The Lancet (@TheLancet) January 14, 2022

The issue offers a report from the commission, plus a profile of commission co-chair Catherine Lord, distinguished professor of psychiatry and education at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a comment from Monica Juneja, professor of pediatrics at Maulana Azad Medical College in New Delhi, India, and her colleagues. All are useful reads before tuning in to the Spectrum webinar this coming Wednesday, 26 January 2022, at 11 a.m. EST with Lord and her commission co-chair, Tony Charman, chair of clinical child psychology at King’s College London in the United Kingdom.

Also on Wednesday at 11 a.m. EST, Jill Silverman, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Davis, will talk about translational biomarkers, tweeted Silvia De Rubeis, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, who coordinates the center’s seminar series. Both talks will be recorded, so you can watch one or the other later.

Next on our ????2022????lineup is @jill_silverman_ (@ucdavis)

Join us on @worldwideneuro on Wed 26th to learn about translational biomarkers of preclinical models of neurodev disorders ????@worldwideneuro https://t.co/efdzvIE0bf @SeaverAutism @SinaiBrain @MountSinaiPsych https://t.co/PmTCL8oSg0 pic.twitter.com/jpudJAShGV

— Silvia De Rubeis (@DeRubeisLab) January 13, 2022

The International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) has launched a new initiative, the INSAR Community Collaborator Request, to connect autism researchers with autistic adults, among other stakeholders, to pursue participatory research, autistic researcher Zack Williams tweeted. Williams, an M.D./Ph.D. student at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, gives details in a thoughtful thread, with links to additional resources from Sue Fletcher-Watson, professor of developmental psychology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

????New exciting opportunity for both autistic people and autism researchers???? The @AutismINSAR Community Collaborator Request (#ICCR) is a new initiative that helps connect autism researchers and autistic adults (or other stakeholders) to collaborate on participatory research 1/???? https://t.co/v9laGNuyXS

— Zack Williams (@QuantPsychiatry) January 20, 2022

Nature Medicine starred a research paper published in November in Cell that flips the link between autism and microbiome differences: Instead of causing the condition’s traits, microbiome differences may result from the dietary preferences many autistic people have. Spectrum covered some of the work in October.

⭐ Research Highlight: #microbiome alterations have been associated with #autism, but a study published in @CellCellPress suggests that this may be a consequence of autism-related dietary preferences, rather than a causal factor.https://t.co/fbPRWFqQBb

— Nature Medicine (@NatureMedicine) January 20, 2022

And, “The emperor has no clothes,” tweeted Andrew Whitehouse, professor of autism research at Telethon Kids and University of Western Australia in Perth, about a new test for autism that was granted ‘breakthrough device’ status by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December. Spectrum covered the agency’s announcement last week.

No clinical validity at all for how hair analysis can diagnose a complex, neurodevelopmental and behaviourally-defined condition.
The emperor has no clothes.

FDA cites hair-based autism diagnostic aid as ‘breakthrough’ https://t.co/QdvvXg5j4S Newsletters via @Spectrum

— Andrew Whitehouse (@AJOWhitehouse) January 17, 2022

That’s it for this week’s Community Newsletter! If you have any suggestions for interesting social posts you saw in the autism research sphere, feel free to send an email to [email protected].

Cite this article: https://doi.org/10.53053/PPLU3820