— Sometimes autism doesn’t appear until adulthood. How is it different in adults and children?
— Autism or autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in children and adults differ in symptoms and course. Children go through stages of neurogenesis and brain formation, and often ASD follows a known pattern so the doctor can identify the disease in childhood.
But for adults the situation is often different. There are two scenarios: first, when the diagnosis is made in childhood, and second, when symptoms begin to appear only in adulthood – at the age of 18-20, when all major brain structures are formed.
— How does ASD manifest in adults?
— The mild form hardly manifests itself. In general, there are various signs that may indicate ASD.
These are a narrow circle of interests, lack of acceptance of anything new, the absence of any emotions during the conversation, a low level of empathy, monotony of the conversation and apathy on the part of the interlocutor.
There are speech therapy defects in speech, words can be repeated frequently. Additionally, autistic adults may often appear insensitive, ask strange questions, or say something inappropriate. They may also experience panic attacks when they encounter something unknown.
— Adult forms of ASD include high-functioning autism, Asperger, Rett, and Kanner syndromes. What is the diffrence?
— Let’s start with high-functioning autism. Only a professional can distinguish people with this type of ASD. Even not all doctors can determine this correctly; ordinary people, in particular, will not notice the difference between the behavior of a healthy person and a person with this type of ASD.
Typically, this condition is characterized by an extremely narrow range of interests, excessive focus on a particular topic, outbursts of aggression, and behavioral stereotypes. However, an adult with this form of the disorder adapts to society, starts a family, and forms strong social bonds.
Asperger syndrome is a mild form of autism, so to speak. Such people have fairly good socialization, often master certain specialties well. Such people are also stuck in some narrow process, and therefore there are many programmers and mathematicians among them. They take on a narrow task, dig deep, and accomplish a lot. They are also easier to “get in over their heads.” Ordinary people may be competitive, but we are hampered by social empathy; People with ASD don’t have this.
Kanner syndrome is already a serious form of the disease. Patients with this form of ASD experience intellectual disability, emotional and psychological aggression, and speech disorders. If with the above forms a person can do without serious therapy, with Kanner syndrome this is impossible.
Rett syndrome is more common in women; It is almost never diagnosed in childhood. This is the most severe form of the disease, because without treatment patients usually do not reach the age of 30, but with treatment they live to be 60 years old. Fortunately, this is an extremely rare form of ASD.
— There is also an atypical type of autism, isn’t there?
— Yes, it is characterized by the fact that the patient does not have all the symptoms of ASD, but only some of them. That’s why it’s called that.
— You said that in some people, ASD symptoms do not appear until adulthood. Why is this happening?
— First of all, people cannot always get their examinations done on time. For example, let’s take a person living in a city where there is no good health organization. How do you know if you have ASD? No, that’s why parents often come to me with their children and suddenly, at the age of 5-7, they find out that the child has autism.
Secondly, sometimes the diagnosis is removed in children, but a relapse may occur one or several decades later. As a rule, it is triggered by stress, depression, bad habits such as smoking or alcohol consumption, and malnutrition.
Third: Sometimes RAS can be examined by experts. There are many adults among my patients who live with ASD and do not realize they have it. They come and say: “I read it, it seems like I have this.” We start looking and OSB actually comes to light.
— How often do children with ASD go into remission?
— This is a difficult question because the information varies across different databases. Someone writes that in 1-3% of cases it reaches someone – in 5%, and even in different countries it reaches 20%.
It all depends on many factors, especially the economic situation in the country and the development of the healthcare system. If we do not have the opportunity to use advanced effective treatment methods, the recovery rate will be low.
— You are performing transcranial magnetic stimulation – this method involves stimulating the cerebral cortex using magnetic pulses. Does this therapy help autism?
— We were one of the first in Russia to start doing transcranial magnetic stimulation. We have a tool that allows us to actually change the state of neurons. Using this method, we can, for example, inhibit neurons or, on the contrary, increase their activity. Moreover, proventhat the method also affects gene expression.
But I have not seen similar large studies on the effectiveness of magnetic stimulation when it comes to autism. But if we take into account small studies involving up to a hundred volunteers, changes in brain function There.
When it comes to our own statistics, we see the impact. If the instrument is in safe hands, it can definitely provide corrections. Moreover, we have been using magnetic stimulation in the treatment of autism for approximately 30 years. In our country, the number of children who later engage in normal socialization reaches 20-25%.
— Some experts believe that the best way to treat ASD is through a play-based form of education. This is true?
— Yes, if there is no other vehicle. But if autism in children externally manifests itself of a complex nature, we must understand that internally the problem lies in the absence of certain synaptic structures in the brain, hemispheric, intrahemispheric connections. In other words, the mechanisms underlying the functioning of brain structures and cells are disrupted. Therefore, any person who studies neurophysiology understands that it is impossible to achieve a serious effect simply by playing with the child, without affecting these mechanisms.
— What other methods are there to treat ASD?
— There are many of these; including drugs, for example, drugs that improve microcirculation and stimulate brain function, nootropics, vascular drugs, vitamins.
But when prescribing medication, it is important to consider that many children with ASD also have perinatal damage to the central nervous system, hypoxia and other diseases that affect the state of the brain.
It is also important to include speech therapists, neuropsychologists, physiotherapists and other specialists in the therapy process. Such patients have both speech and motor disorders: children often walk on tiptoe. There are also problems in socialization.
— A number of NeuroHack procedures are also used at your center, can you tell us about this?
— This is a set of procedures aimed at improving brain performance. We affect the cells in the brain structure through all possible channels. First of all, like classical doctors, we look at whether blood flow to the brain and metabolism need to be improved. We then stimulate it to work with medication, then connect magnetic and electrical stimulation.
So this is a whole complex of systems aimed at improving brain function, they are all selected individually after diagnosis. According to our calculations, after completing a series of NeuroHack procedures, memory improves by 23%, decision-making speeds up by 25%, psychological stability increases by 30%, creativity increases by 35%, and mental performance increases by 47%.
— So how does NeuroHack work?
— The complex combines several techniques that allow you to activate metabolic processes in neurons, create new neuroplastic processes and save the results obtained.
There are three stages to working with the patient. The first is the initial examination and diagnosis, in which we evaluate the metabolic and neurophysiological characteristics of the body using cognitive, visual, psychophysiological and diagnostic studies. At the same time, the functional state of the brain and the speed of processing cognitive information are also evaluated.
The second stage involves the application of selected methods based on individual indicators. This includes transcranial magnetic stimulation, electrical stimulation and neurostimulation, as well as training and cognitive simulators. At the final stage, we consolidate the achieved result – the patient is given advice on diet, regime and lifestyle, as well as individual homework using online simulators.
— You can improve your cognitive abilities in 11 days, but how long does the effect last?
— One to five months, subject to all recommendations.
— Could this set of procedures somehow help people with autism?
– Of course, we have many patients who benefit from this method. They successfully graduated from universities, started families and built careers.
— Do you plan to improve the complex in any way?
— We are constantly improving and finalizing. However, we have another interesting field that we want to bring to widespread clinical use in the coming years; This is called “neuro-rejuvenation”.
We can slow down the aging process, including with hormone therapy. The brain is a configurable computer, and that’s what we do.
We are currently analyzing data collected from the 25-year study, and the interim results are promising.
— How does this “neuro-regeneration” happen?
— We use a variety of methods, including electromagnetic stimulation and nutritional selection. First of all, the patient is diagnosed, we find the areas and regions in the brain that are most sensitive to neuroaging and we act accordingly. This is a very broad topic. Using electromagnetic stimulation, hormones, virtual reality, music and poetry, we explain which type is more suitable for whom.
But let’s wait until the product hits the market.