G-protein defects cause severe loss of rod function in most autistic children. They lose night vision and light-to-dark shading on objects in the daylight. They sink into a “magic eye puzzle”, seeing only color and shape in all of their visual field, except for a “box” in the middle, the only place they get the impression of the three dimensional nature of objects. Only when they look at television or a computer do they predictably hear the right language for what they see. They try to make sense of the world around them by lining up toys, sorting by color. They have to “see” objects by adding “boxes” together, thus “thinking in pictures”. Their avoidance of eye contact is an attempt to get light to land off center in the retina where they have some rod function. Due to G-protein defects, mother’s touch feels like sandpaper on their skin. Common sounds become like nails scraped on a blackboard. We think they cannot abstract, but we sink these children into an abstract painting at 18 months of age, and they are left to figure out if the language they are hearing is connected to what they are looking at, at the time.
The defect for congenital, stationary, night blindness on the short arm of the X chromosome affects cell-membrane, calcium channels that, if not functioning, block (the action of—WSL) NMDA/glutamate receptors (preventing calcium from entering the neurons to activate a signal—WSL) in the hippocampus where pathways connect the left and right brain with the frontal lobe. Margaret Bauman has described a lack of cell growth and differentiation in the hippocampus seen on autopsy in autistic children. The frontal lobe is the seat of attention, inhibition of impulse, social judgment, and all executive function.
When stimulated, these NMDA receptors, through G-proteins, stimulate nuclear (of the nucleus) Vitamin A receptors discovered by Ron Evans, et al. Dec 1998. When blocked, in the animal model, mice are unable to learn and remember changes in their environment. They act as if they have significant visual perceptual problems and have spatial learning deficits.
Of concern is that the Hepatitis B virus protein sequence was originally isolated in the gene for a similar retinoid receptor (RAR beta) that is the critical receptor important for brain plasticity and retinoid signaling in the hippocampus.
I am using natural, lipid-soluble concentrated cis form of vitamin A in cod-liver oil (CLO now seems to be palmitate fortified – look for vitamin A from fish-liver oil - Willis) to bypass blocked G-protein pathways and turn on these central retinoid receptors. In a few days, most of these children regain eye contact, and some say their “box” of clear vision grows. After two months on Vitamin A treatment some of these children, when given a single dose of Bethanechol™ to stimulate pathways in the parasympathetic system in the gut, begin to focus, laugh, concentrate, show a sense of humor, and talk after 30 minutes as if reconnected.
pages 225-226