78 Direct evidence for the contribution of environmental factors There has been much discussion about the initial suggestion that MMR (measles mumps, rubella) vaccine.79 However there is now a scientific consensus that the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism, based on multiple epidemiologic

Ku-0059436 nmr studies which did not support a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines and ASD (see the review by Parker in ref 80). However, other environmental factors are likely to contribute to a significant proportion of ASD risk. Prenatal and perinatal factors A recent meta-analysis Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical of prenatal factors, Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical limited to pregnancy-related factors, identified few significant risk factors.81 The main factors are maternal gestational diabetes, maternal

bleeding during pregnancy, and maternal medication. The latter issue will be further discussed later. Moreover, increased risk was also found Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical in this meta-analysis for first-born children compared with children born third or later, and, in Nordic countries, for offspring of mothers born abroad. Exposure to intrauterine infections was associated with a significant increase in risk for autism in the analysis limited to the four studies that controlled for multiple covariates or used sibling controls. Hie association Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical between maternal infection and autism risk is further supported by the results with rodent models of the maternal infection. In these animal models, gestational viral infection is mimicked

by systemic administration of Poly I:C, a synthetic doublestranded RNA, which elicits an innate immune response. It seems that gestational viral infections trigger a maternal immune response, which can perturb fetal brain development, at least in part through interleukin-6.82 In another Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical meta-analysis focusing on the perinatal and neonatal period,83 the same authors identified several potential risk factors, the main being fetal presentation, umbilieal-cord complications, fetal distress, birth injury or trauma, multiple birth, maternal hemorrhage, summer birth, low almost birth weight, small for gestational age, low 5minute Apgar score, meconium aspiration, neonatal anemia, ABO or Rh incompatibility, and hyperbilirubinemia. Feeding difficulties and congenital malformation that are also mentioned should rather be considered as symptoms of an underlying cause of autism. The identification of summer birth as a risk factor is consistent with the results of a recent study showing that maternal infection in the first trimester increases autism risk.84 Overall, preterm birth was not associated with the risk of autism.