RETT SYNDROME

also called Cerebroatrophic Hyperammonemia, rare progressive neurological disorder that causes mental retardation, compulsive hand movements, difficulties in walking, and other symptoms. It is a sex-linked hereditary disorder that exclusively affects girls and occurs in about one of every 15,000 female births. Rett syndrome causes progressive disabilities in intellectual and motor development after about the first year of life. Autism, decreased body weight, failure of the head to grow with age, and a mild hyperammonemia are among the other symptoms. The disorder was first described in 1965. There is no effective treatment for it.