auto-, aut- +

Someone whose self-interests are dominant and who wants to satisfy only his/her personal needs and desires.

Showing evidence of autism, e.g., a disturbance in psychological development in which use of language, reaction to stimuli, interpretation of the world, and the formation of relationships are not fully established and follow unusual patterns.

A severe pervasive developmental disorder with onset usually before three years of age and a biological basis related to neurologic or neurophysiologic factors.

It is characterized by qualitative impairment in reciprocal social interaction (e.g., lack of awareness of the existence of feelings of others, failure to seek comfort at times of distress, lack of imitation), in verbal and nonverbal communication, and in capacity for symbolic play, and by restricted and unusual repertoire of activities and interests.

Other characteristics sometimes include cognitive impairment, hyperactivitiy or hyporeactivity to certain stimuli, stereotypic behaviors, neurological abnormalities; such as, seizures or altered muscle tone, sleeping or eating pattern abnormalities, and severe behavioral problems. It is associated with several genetic conditions and prenatal and perinatal risk factors.

1. An individual with autism who has an extraordinary talent or skill not produced by most people.
2. Someone who expresses extraordinary mental abilities, often in the fields of numerical calculation, but also in art or music.

Information about Autistic Savants and their special skills.

Self-absorption; preoccupation with inner thoughts, drives, and idiosyncratic logic; egocentric, subjective thinking lacking objectivity and preferring a narcissistic, inner, private reality to that which is externally validated.

Activation of an endocrine gland by its own secretory product or products.

1. Nonspecific agglutination or clumping together of cells (e.g., bacteria, erythrocytes) due to physical-chemical factors.
2. The agglutination of an individual's red blood cells in his own serum, as a consequence of a specific autoantibody.

A substance present in an individual's blood that agglutinates that person's red blood cells.

Autoimmune; the immune response of an organism against any of its own tissues, cells, or cell components.

The condition of a species in which some individuals are adapted to cross fertilization and others to self-fertilization.

1. Self-analysis as in psychoanalysis.
2. In chemistry, analysis with an autoanalyzer.

An instrument that uses continuous-flow technology to perform automated chemical testing.

A clinical history as provided by the patient, especially a psychiatric history.

1. An antibody that an organism produces against any of its own tissues, cells, or cell components.
2. An antibody that reacts against normal substances present in the organism producing it and is present in autoimmune diseases.
3. An antibody directed against a self antigen, i.e., against a normal tissue constituent.

An antibody (immunoglobulin) formed in response to, and reacting against, one of the individual's own normal antigenic endogenous body constituents.

Predictive Antibodies"

• In autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, the immune system mistakenly manufactures aintibodies that target the body's tissues.
• Certain of these "autoantibodies" appear many years before overt symptoms of any disease, suggesting that screening for these molecules could be used to predict who is at risk of falling ill.
• Autoantibodies might also serve as guides to disease severity and progression and might even warn of risk for some nonimmune disorders.
• Screening for predictive autoantibodies could one day become routine, although a scarcity of preventive treatments currently stands in the way.

1. An antigen of one's own cells or cell products. Also called self-antigen.
2. A "self antigen"; any tissue constituent that evokes an immune response to the host's tissues.