This week, an interesting story came out in the news about Brazilian scientists working in the United States on an autism study. They discovered an autism “neuron” that they managed to fix in a laboratory experiment. The ground-breaking study, led by Brazilian molecular biologist Alysson Muotri, showed that there may be a possibility to treat or even cure autism. The scientists took skin samples from children with autism and children without autism, and found that the neurons from the children with autism had shorter synapses. They tested a drug to treat the effected neurons, and miraculously, the neurons were fixed. The big challenge now is to find a new treatment that would work outside of a lab.

Learn more below!

Cientistas brasileiros consertam ‘neurônio autista’ em laboratório, Portal de Paulinia

“Para analisar diferenças entre os neurônios, a equipe fez uma biópsia de pele de pacientes autistas e de pessoas sem a condição. Depois, reprogramou as células da pele em células de pluripotência induzida (iPS) – idênticas às células-tronco embrionárias, mas não extraídas de embriões. “Pluripotência” é a capacidade de toda célula-tronco de se especializar, ou diferenciar, em qualquer célula do corpo.” READ MORE

Vocabulary Check

1. What’s the Portuguese word for disease?

2. What does incurável mean in English?

3. How do you say stem cells in Portuguese?

Answers

1. doença

2. incurable

3. células-tronco