Former Oskaloosa student-athlete working to find causes of autism

OSKALOOSA March 18, 2008 11:00 am

— An Oskaloosa native is making strides in autism research, showing that a mother’s antibodies may be attacking a developing fetus’ brain.
Loren Martin, 32, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Azusa Pacific University, has been researching how the brain works since his undergraduate studies.
“I was really interested in the brain early on,” Martin said.
Martin was the lead author of a study that examined whether a mother’s antibodies could influence whether a child will become autistic. The study, titled “Stereotypies and hyperactivity in rhesus monkeys exposed to IgG from mothers of children with autism,” was recently published in the science journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.
Martin’s mom, Maria Martin, who runs Mahaska Hearing Aid, said she had known her son would become a doctor since he was 10.
“Loren has always been an overachiever, and he’s always been a perfectionist in his work,” Maria Martin said.
Loren was a straight-A student throughout high school. Although he was the valedictorian of the class of 1994, he preferred Friday nights on the football field to preparing for exams.
“He loved football,” Maria Martin said.
During his senior year of high school, he was named first-team all-district and won the coveted Benz Award. The team went 3-6, which was an improvement from the winless season the year before. In the 1994 yearbook, Martin is quoted saying, “Yes, I think we won respect. We won three games and had several other games that were close.” A few years later, Coach Jerry Staton took the Indians to a state title.
Martin said football provided him with much needed discipline and added balance to his studies.
The advanced courses at Oskaloosa High School helped him prepare for college. He said the heritage class taught by Mrs. Staton and Mr. Burrows was a good course that helped foster an interest in gaining more knowledge, and advanced chemistry with John Heslinga had a profound impact on his interest in science.
“It was an excellent course,” Martin said.
He took his interests to Olivet Nazarene University in Kankakee, Ill., where he studied psychology.
He played his freshman year, but then decided to focus on his studies and other aspects of college life.
During his sophomore year in college, he worked on a therapy team to help a 3-year-old boy with autism. The group of student therapists provided treatment to teach the boy how to communicate and socialize under the supervision of a licensed therapist.
Martin worked with the boy through his senior year. The boy, who had been unable to speak and communicate, learned to use basic phrases to ask for things.
“Just being able to communicate at that basic level really helped a lot,” Martin said.
Working with the boy inspired Martin to try and help more children.
“I found myself seeing the improvement with this therapy, but I was frustrated that I couldn’t help more children,” Martin said.
He then added minors in biology and chemistry to his psychology major and prepared to take an interdisciplinary approach toward autism. His plan was to study the causes of autism to prevent cases from occurring.
In graduate school at the University of Tennessee, he created some effects similar to autism in a group of mice by using a genetic mutation that caused a part of the brain called the cerebellum to not fully develop. Abnormal development of the cerebellum has been consistently found in the brains of children with autism.
After receiving his Ph.D. in neuroscience in 2003, Martin chose to join the MIND Institute at UC Davis for a postdoctoral fellowship. The MIND Institute is dedicated to studying autism and development disorders, which gave Martin a chance to study a monkey model for one possible cause of autism.
The study began at the end of 2003 and involved 13 rhesus monkeys. Martin said rhesus monkeys, which are the most commonly used monkey in research, are a good model to use because their DNA is more than 90 percent identical to humans.
Martin and his colleagues exposed four monkeys prenatally to neuronal antibodies from women who have had multiple children with autism. Another four monkeys were exposed prenatally to antibodies from women who have had multiple normal-developing children. There were also five monkeys that were not exposed to antibodies at all.
Martin and his colleagues tested the monkeys for the first 12 months after birth. He said the bulk of the findings came from the post-weaning phase after six months.
The monkeys that were exposed prenatally to the antibodies thought to cause autism developed stereotypies, exhibited by repetitive pacing and back flipping.
The monkeys that had been exposed to the antibodies from mothers with normal developing children acted similar to the untreated control group. He said that there were no visible effects in the monkeys that had been prenatally exposed to antibodies from mothers with normal-developing children.
“Both of these groups showed next to no stereotypies,” Martin said.
By using collars with monitoring devices, the researchers were also able to measure activity levels of the different groups of monkeys. The monkeys that were exposed to the autism antibody were more hyperactive than the other monkeys.
There were also more subtle changes in the behavior of the monkeys. The monkeys that were exposed to the autism antibody were more nonsocial, doing more activities farther from other monkeys.
Overall, the results indicate that the antibody used in the study could be a cause of autism.
“Stereotypies are a very common behavior in autism,” Martin said.
In children, stereotypies can include rocking, hand flapping, and other repetitive behaviors. Hyperactivity is also found in children with autism, Martin said.
Martin said the next step is to identify what the antibodies are targeting in a developing child’s brain. One of Martin’s collaborators is pursuing this question.
These results could also be strengthened with a larger sample size.
“A large-scale replication is the next phase,” Martin said.
He said a study with at least twice the number of monkeys would confirm the findings. After that, it would be time to look at what percentage of autism cases in humans are caused by antibodies from mothers, Martin said. Long term prospects include the prevention of some autism cases by identifying potentially harmful antibodies in pregnant women and removing them before they can cause damage to the developing fetal brain.
Currently, Martin is researching the effect of birth order in autism severity. He is checking to see if cases are more severe in children born after the first affected child due to a dosage effect of antibody exposure. A member of the International Society for Autism Research, he will be presenting work at the group’s annual meeting this May in London.
Martin and his wife Shannon, a pediatric oncology nurse, reside in San Dimas, Calif. Martin said Shannon offered huge support during his graduate and postdoctoral studies.
Shannon has a lot of experience working with children battling cancer and provides input from the field, Martin said.
“She’s always there to share ideas,” Martin said. “Cancer or autism in a child are both very challenging for a family and have many parallels. Her day-to-day experiences working with various families help me to stay focused.”
Martin and Shannon have two daughters, Addison, 2, and Olivia, 4.
Maria Martin is proud of her son’s pursuits in autism research.
“I think if you’re given a special ability for things like that then you should use it,” Maria Martin said. “It’s excellent that he’s got a mind for this type of research and he’s pursuing it.”
Herald Staff Writer Wes Kappelman can be reached by email at news2@oskyherald.com

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