4 ms·

assortative mating - a certain 'type' of person going to college and meeting people they reproduce with - is also implicated.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Was this the polite way of saying "older, smart people"? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4927579/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4927579/ (Autism As a Disorder of High Intelligence [2016]) > The hypothesis that autism risk in offspring is positively associated with high parental intelligence, and high socioeconomic status, traces to Kanner (1943, p. 248), who stated, referring to autistic children, that “they all come of highly intelligent families,” at high levels of educational, socioeconomic and occupational achievement (Kanner and Lesser, 1958; Rimland, 1964). King (1975) reviewed a set of demographic studies motivated by these findings, and reported strong support for the pattern of high socioeconomic status linked with autism, including support from studies (e.g., Lotter, 1966, 1967) that checked all young children (of 8–10 years) in a given geographic area for infantile autism, and thus should be largely independent of confounding ascertainment or help-seeking biases, variation in access to relevant health care, or variation in parental awareness. Note that these observations are 60+ years old. Read the entire "Socioeconomic status" section of the paper I cite. They argue the same and state genetic testing should be done to back it up. These seems an ideal study for 23andme (yes, yes, I know how a vocal minority feels about this org).
- alexandercrohde 7y ago
  I guess what I'd like to know is (and I'm specifically asking you because you seem to be knowledgeable): 1. It sounds like de-novo mutations are the best theory for 70%+ of autism cases per this paper, right? 2. Does anybody track the "base rate" of de-novo mutations / generation in humans? If so, how many generations back do we have data for, and how many regions? 3. Aren't we seeing an increase in autism is developed nations even within poor uneducated families with young parents?
  - owlmonkey 7y ago
    One study says ~38 individual base mutations per generation, but that increases by about 2 bases per year of the father's age, which is still not much given 6 billion base pairs in humans. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3548427/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3548427/) These studies, however, are missing rearrangements and other spontaneous structural changes which might not modify the genes at all but might change their expression or dosage. We don't have enough data yet about structural mutation rates, the technology to assess that at scale and low cost is only coming online now. Not sure about the incident rate, but since the guidelines for reporting have widened so much in the last decade that might mask any ability to really know.
- zeckalpha 7y ago
  These also are groups with more access to health care. Do the numbers factor such effects?

toomuchtodo 7y ago

Was this the polite way of saying "older, smart people"? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4927579/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4927579/ (Autism As a Disorder of High Intelligence [2016]) > The hypothesis that autism risk in offspring is positively associated with high parental intelligence, and high socioeconomic status, traces to Kanner (1943, p. 248), who stated, referring to autistic children, that “they all come of highly intelligent families,” at high levels of educational, socioeconomic and occupational achievement (Kanner and Lesser, 1958; Rimland, 1964). King (1975) reviewed a set of demographic studies motivated by these findings, and reported strong support for the pattern of high socioeconomic status linked with autism, including support from studies (e.g., Lotter, 1966, 1967) that checked all young children (of 8–10 years) in a given geographic area for infantile autism, and thus should be largely independent of confounding ascertainment or help-seeking biases, variation in access to relevant health care, or variation in parental awareness. Note that these observations are 60+ years old. Read the entire "Socioeconomic status" section of the paper I cite. They argue the same and state genetic testing should be done to back it up. These seems an ideal study for 23andme (yes, yes, I know how a vocal minority feels about this org).

alexandercrohde 7y ago
I guess what I'd like to know is (and I'm specifically asking you because you seem to be knowledgeable): 1. It sounds like de-novo mutations are the best theory for 70%+ of autism cases per this paper, right? 2. Does anybody track the "base rate" of de-novo mutations / generation in humans? If so, how many generations back do we have data for, and how many regions? 3. Aren't we seeing an increase in autism is developed nations even within poor uneducated families with young parents?
- owlmonkey 7y ago
  One study says ~38 individual base mutations per generation, but that increases by about 2 bases per year of the father's age, which is still not much given 6 billion base pairs in humans. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3548427/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3548427/) These studies, however, are missing rearrangements and other spontaneous structural changes which might not modify the genes at all but might change their expression or dosage. We don't have enough data yet about structural mutation rates, the technology to assess that at scale and low cost is only coming online now. Not sure about the incident rate, but since the guidelines for reporting have widened so much in the last decade that might mask any ability to really know.
zeckalpha 7y ago
These also are groups with more access to health care. Do the numbers factor such effects?