An enzyme inhibitor developed by Bruce Hammock, PhD, professor of entomology, and colleagues at University of California (UC), Davis, reduced inflammation in the brains of mice born to mothers with maternal immune activation as described in a study in PNAS.
Seventeen-year-old Justin Silver was five when he was diagnosed with fragile X syndrome. Despite living across the country in New York, the family traveled to the UC Davis MIND Institute in Sacramento, Calif., where they met the world’s leading experts in the field.
Researchers at UC Davis zoomed in on a group of children whose older siblings already had an autism diagnosis. Across 241 kids, 14.1 percent of those whose mothers took prenatal vitamins during their first month of pregnancy went on to develop autism, versus 32.7 percent amongst the group whose mothers didn’t take the vitamins.
Effective treatments for autism are not widely available, leaving many families without access to care, especially those in rural, low-income and underserved areas. In addition, services are limited for adults with autism.
UC Davis experts are testing how digital games, apps and virtual reality may help us treat neurodevelopmental conditions and depression, improve food security, and more.
Twenty years ago, a small group of Sacramento-area parents of children with autism decided to search for more medical research into understanding and treating autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions.
