Jeffrey Alberts and Christopher Harshaw (Photo/ Indiana University)

Indiana University has received a $900,000 grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development to fund one of the first basic scientific investigations into potential connections between fever and the relief of autism symptoms.

The study will be led by Jeffrey Alberts and Christopher Harshaw of the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ department of psychological and brain sciences. The goal will be to address a growing number of anecdotal reports from parents in which the onset of fever appears to temporarily relieve some social symptoms of autism in their children.

“Like many research topics, the phenomenon isn’t totally unknown, but exact mechanisms linking body temperature and autism haven’t yet been organized as a principle and unpacked to see how it could work,” stated Alberts.

Fever-related behavior changes that have been reported include sociability, mood and communication. Alberts and Harshaw will work to investigate the association between physiological ability to regulate body temperature and social behaviors associated with autism using mice.

Alberts has already extensively studied the ways rodents and other mammals huddle together to share and conserve heat, an example of social behavior evolving from metabolic processes. Producing heat in response to cold also depends on the hormone oxytocin, which has been credited with a number of important social and physiological functions.

The new research will build on previous experiments by Alberts and Harshaw to determine links between maintaining body temperature and social behavior. They hope it will hold “great promise” for applications in humans.

You can read more about the specifics of the study on IU’s website.

Source: Indiana University