http://www2.bostonherald.com/lifestyle/health_fitness/auti06022003.htm

BU to open center for research in autism

by Michael Lasalandra

Monday, June 2, 2003

Parents of children with autism are cheering the news that the federal government has decided to provide a $7.6 million grant to establish a ``center of excellence'' in Boston to research the disorder.

``This is important,'' said Anke Kriske of Natick, the mother of a 13-year-old boy with autism. ``Autism research has been a disaster. We're making up for lost time.''

The National Institutes of Health grant will go to the Boston University School of Medicine to establish the BU Autism Research Center of Excellence.

The program will focus on basic science and treatment research for the disorder that afflicts an estimated 1 in 600 children and prevents them from communicating or forming relationships.

Dr. Helen Tager-Flusberg, who will head the center, said the research will focus on the underlying neurological processes that cause the disease to develop, with the idea of potentially finding a drug that can treat the condition.

The center will also study the effects on families of having a child with autism and will evaluate different interventions on children with the disease.

It is also critical that more be learned about the function of the brains of children with the disease, said Tager-Flusberg.

``How do they process social information?'' she said. ``What are their brains doing when they are looking at people? Ideally, we can develop drugs as we learn more about the basic functioning of their brains.''

© Copyright by the Boston Herald and Herald Interactive Advertising Systems, Inc.

No portion of BostonHerald.com or its content may be reproduced without the owner's written permission. Privacy Commitment