2023-04-29 18:00:05
“I was not predestined to study the genetics of autism”, says Thomas Bourgeron. A vocation all the more improbable as the researcher, who has become head of the Human Genetics and Cognitive Functions laboratory at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, has for parents… a psychoanalyst and a social worker.
Going down this path was a funny way of “kill the father”, declared his own, not without humor. Freud’s followers, in fact, have long championed the idea – now largely disavowed – that autism develops after birth, due to poor interaction between child and mother. “When you utter something so guilty for mothers, you have to be able to prove it”slips the geneticist, professor at the University of Paris Cité.
As a young researcher, Thomas Bourgeron had nevertheless turned to a field conducive to family peace: plant biology. “At 23, I peeled 4 kilos of potatoes every two days, in a Parisian university, to extract a few micrograms of mitochondria. » The goal: to isolate an enzyme involved in the respiration of plant cells. Meetings will make him branch off towards the study of the genes involved in mitochondrial diseases, then in schizophrenia and, finally, in autism. Or, rather, in “autism spectrum disorders” (ASD), which would affect in France from 1% to 2% of the population – that is to say at least 650,000 people.
A triad of symptoms
At 57, the scientist, who calls himself a “active contemplator”publishes a book, Genes, synapses, autisms (Odile Jacob, 320 pages, 23.90 euros). A precise, subtle and accessible summary of knowledge on these complex disorders, with a credo: “Address autism by respecting the scientific approach, without ideology. » Throughout the book, his empathy for patients shines through. “You have to understand autism from the inside”, told him one day a psychiatrist, Théo Peeters. “ His recommendation informed my entire research”says the geneticist.
Dissecting the origins of ASD is a challenge, given their extreme heterogeneity. A triad of symptoms brings patients together: difficulties in social communication, stereotypies (tendency to reproduce the same gestures or words), restricted interests. But, in addition, a third has an intellectual disability, between 15% and 25% have epileptic seizures, and more than 65% have a hypersensitivity to certain sounds, smells or textures. Many have attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity. ASDs, in fact, belong to the large family of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs).
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