Dr. Sergiu Pașcă

Yeah.

Well, certainly the increase is still puzzling, right?

So I think on one hand, there's no doubt that the changes in diagnostic criteria, which have happened over time.

I mean, we had to just refine what autism really is.

That changed, you know, to some extent, the prevalence.

We've also seen, you know, a diagnostic migration, so to speak.

So some children, for instance, you know, 30 years ago would have been diagnosed with intellectual disability.

And today they fit the criteria for autism.

About a third of individuals with autism also have intellectual disability.

So there is also a great overlap between the conditions.

So there's been a move sometimes between the diagnosis over time, of course,

There are all kinds of discussions about availability of services and to what extent that is also contributing.

But we don't truly understand all the reasons behind this increase.

There's no doubt.

We can't explain.

We know that it's highly heritable based on genetic studies.

So we know the heritability is very high, one of the highest for psychiatric disorders that we know of.

But of course, we don't have the genes for every single form.

So it is likely that some of them are very rare.

So essentially, just think of it as like, they're individually rare form, but collectively common.