Oh well thats that then, nothing to see here... Except, Autism is known to be caused, at least in some cases, to brain inflamation due to immune reponse or autoimmune syndromes. What makes some people develop dysfunctional immune responses to triggers like viruses or other antigens? GENES. When I was diagnoses with an autoimmune disease the doctor said it was ‘just genetic’ . She didn’t explain that my genetic predisposition needed a trigger, like a vaccine for example. The fact that they dont mention this in the article is pretty irresponsible. We know autoimmune syndromes are associated with specific genes.