Immunological findings in autism

Autism is a disorder of neurobiological origin characterized by impairment of contact and communications. Typical symptoms of autism include extreme withdrawal and in abnormal absorption in fantasy, accompanied by delusion, hallucination, and an inability to communicate verbally or to otherwise relate to people. The cause of autism remains unknown. However, there are several factors including infectious, neurological, metabolic, environmental, and immunologic origin that have been thought to be involved in the disease development process of autism. The cellular entities playing a role in the pathologic processes in the autistic brain are the neurons, glial cells, endothelial cells, microglial cells, and astrocytes with blood brain barrier permeability playing all important role for the trafficking of the immune cells and mediators. In this chapter immunologic findings on autism are discussed. Particular emphasis is made on the aspects of immunological dysfunctions and inflammation as the two important immunological principles contributing to the diseases process in autism.