Researchers at Simons Foundation’s Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) have identified a  microbial signature for autism spectrum disorder, a finding that offers information about  how the gut microbiome influences this neurological syndrome.

The study was published on June 26 in Nature Neuroscience and challenges the idea that  autism is a primarily genetic condition. The new research suggests that environmental  factors may be behind the rise in rates of autism.

The researchers noted, “The presence of this core microbiome in combination with the  depletion of most ASD-associated taxa further suggests a causal role for these  microorganisms in shaping autism symptoms. “Despite our inability to determine actual metabolomic profiles at this point (Methods), our  metabolite analysis based on microbiome-derived and brain-derived metabolite inferences  as well as the dietderived metabolite data reveals a picture of a unifying and distinct ASD  functional architecture. With the brain, the immunome and diet as major effectors, the  multi-factorial complexity of ASD is reduced to a multi-scale set of interactions centered  around human and bacterial metabolism that, in turn, determines phenotypic, genomic and metagenomic attributes via multiple feedback loops.”