Florey researchers have found evidence of higher levels of the plastic chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in pregnant mothers who gave birth to sons with autism. Research published in Nature Communications, led by Florey scientists Dr Wah Chin Boon and Professor Anne-Louise Ponsonby, supports the hypothesis of a possible link between autism and exposure to plastic chemicals in the womb. Professor Ponsonby said the researchers analysed two large birth cohorts – the Barwon Infant Study (BIS) in Australia and the Columbia Centre for Children's Health and Environment in the USA.
Exposure to plastic chemicals during pregnancy has already been shown in some studies to be associated with subsequent autism in offspring." Professor Anne-Louise Ponsonby, Florey scientist "Our work is important because it demonstrates one of the biological mechanisms potentially involved. BPA can disrupt hormone controlled male fetal brain development in several ways, including silencing a key enzyme, aromatase, that controls neurohormones and is especially important in fetal male brain development.
This appears to be part of the autism puzzle." The study examined children with lower levels of the enzyme aromatase, which in the brain converts testosterone to neuroestrogen, Professor Ponsonby said. The link between BPA presence and autism was particularly evident in the top fifth of boys with vulnerability to the endocrine-disrupting properties of this chemical.
That is, those with lower levels of the enzyme a.