In a recent study, Duke scientists tested whether a single infusion of a unit of own or donated cord blood could improve social communication skills in children aged 2 to 7 who were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder..

Of the 180 children in the study, a subset of non-mentally retarded children showed improved language communication, the ability to maintain attention as measured by eye tracking, and an increase in alpha and beta EEG power, a measure of brain function..

However, those who also had an intellectual disability did not show improvement in social communication function after infusion..

The results are published online May 19 in the journal "

“Cord blood contains immune-modulating cells called monocytes,” says Joan Kurzberg, MD, Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics Jerome S.. Harris, director of the Marcus Center for Cellular Therapy and a pioneer in the use of cord blood treatments. “In the lab, these cells calm brain inflammation that can be seen in children with autism.. In this study, we tested whether cord blood infusions would improve symptoms in children with autism.”.

Approximately 40 percent of children with autism also have an intellectual disability, defined as an IQ below 70, according to first author Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., director of the Duke Institute of Brain Sciences and William Cleland Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science.

More research is needed to determine why the results of this study differ from those with and without intellectual disability, and whether treatment can be modified to benefit more children.

“It is not clear whether the failure for children with intellectual disability is due to the short duration of the study, the evaluation of the results is not sensitive enough to detect changes in this population, or that cord blood is not really an effective treatment for children with autism who also have intellectual disabilities,”.

“We learned a lot from this initial research,” said Kurzberg, senior author of the manuscript.. “In the future, we hope to conduct a study designed for children with autism who have an intellectual disability, with a focus on outcome measures that can be targeted to test this group of children.. We also used the lessons learned from this study to develop an ongoing study testing other cell therapies in older children with autism without intellectual disability.”.

“Overall, we are encouraged by these initial results and plan to build on them in future studies of cell therapy in children with autism,” Kurzberg said..

medical-heal. en.