Adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, such as autism and Down syndrome, experience substantially higher rates of anxiety and depression than the general population of adults, researchers report in JAMA Network Open.   

The study, based on data from 44,000 adults, provides the first national estimates of mental health symptom prevalence, healthcare treatment and access barriers facing this population.  

"Our findings paint a distressing picture of the mental health and healthcare for people with these disabilities in the United States," said senior author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “Historically, society has not taken the needs of this population as seriously as it should, so in that respect, our findings aren’t surprising. But the scale of burden is shocking.”  

The protein “neurofilament light chain” (NfL) – studied in humans in the context of neurodegenerative diseases and aging – is also detectable in the blood of numerous animals, and NfL levels increase with age in mice, cats, dogs, and horses. Experts from the DZNE and the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research (HIH) at the University of Tübingen report these findings in the scientific journal “PLOS Biology”. In their view, this biomarker could help to assess the biological age of animals and estimate their life expectancy.