9 ms·

Maybe so, though equally could just be a small part in a larger puzzle or even a red herring. However, as somebody who is on the autistic spectrum, I have note

• jacobolus 7y ago
  > index and forefinger are of equal lengths Those are two names for the same finger. Did you mean index and ring ringer?
  • Zenst 7y ago
    I did, thank you, my bad. Glad I dug up a relevant link to dispel my confusion there.
• technothrasher 7y ago
  if I could go back in time and become normal I don't know if this is good news, or bad news but... there is no normal. I know what you meant, what it would be like without ASD. But I'm not sure that would give you any particular insight into anything other than simply being a different person.
  • Zenst 7y ago
    Agreed and yes, normal is a perception based upon a mode average. After all, if the majority of people were psychopaths, normal would take on a whole new meaning. Equally it is hard to evaluate such a different timeline as you are evaluating from a different perspective/timeline.
    • technothrasher 7y ago
      Yes, you end up very quickly in Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" scenario. You can't ever know what it is like to be another person (or animal) because as soon as you are that other thing, you are no longer you. If you were still you, you wouldn't be that other thing so you still wouldn't have that knowledge.
  • mrlala 7y ago
    >there is no normal I mean, yeah there is? There are 7 billion people on this planet. If you could create some score of peoples intelligence, how they react/respond to people, their normal physical movements and put that into a distribution the autistic people would definitely be on the tail end of the curves. Sure everyone is different in various ways- but a lot of those differences are very small compared to the differences exhibited by autistic people. I can give you a direct example- my oldest son has.. something. We had him tested for autism when he was younger and were basically told that yeah there is 'something'. He's not technically autistic, or at least not the level where he needs extreme special stuff, but he does exhibit some of the traits of autistic children, just in a more minor way. So for lack of any better term he is "very slightly autistic". At 7 years old he has an insane memory (closest to "photographic" that I've ever encountered) and seems highly intelligent in some areas (but definitely not in others! it's quite incredible actually to see sometimes..). He has some of the physical traits where he can't really sit still, needs weighted blankets, has some of those unique arm movements of autistic people.. but again fairly subtle. A lot of things to him can be more black/white than gray, because he seems to need to fit everything into a very specific bucket in his mind. Every teacher he has had, including some which work with the more special ed kids, has said "yeah there is... something different about him". Now conversely, my younger child I would classify as "normal". Why do I say that? Well.. I worked at co-op preschools with both of my boys for years. I saw lots of kids. And when you see a ton of kids and play/interact with them... I mean yeah there is a normal. Normal is how you would expect someone to behave and interact with. There is a relatively normal way you would expect a 7 year old to respond in various situations, etc. Anyway- sorry for writing a book. I guess I'm putting off work.. I just found it a bit strange to not accept that, well, most people are actually pretty darn similar while a minority of people are very different. I see it every day in my house!
• epx 7y ago
  Same story here: same length of those 2 fingers, complications at birth, damn good memory for things when I was child, and Aspie to the bone.
  • mrmonkeyman 7y ago
    Are you also annoying as hell and a pain to work with?
  • inflatableDodo 7y ago
    Don't know about birth complications but otherwise same.
• RmDen 7y ago
  ok..now I am confused which hand do you look at?.. On my left hand..index and ring finger are about the same.... on my right hand the ring finger is longer
  • peeters 7y ago
    For me it varies widely depending on how I hold my hand. If I place them flat on a surface, palm down, fingers together, my ring fingers look longer. If I look at them palm towards me, fingers separated, extended, but relaxed, it's clear the index fingers are longer on both hands.
  • fasteo 7y ago
    The other way around for me. I am left handed. This finger ratio thing is weird.
• bogwog 7y ago
  That digit ratio stuff has always weirded me out. There are even some studies that show certain ratios correspond with homosexuality. That wikipedia page even has a huge table with a list of stuff like having a high digit ratio corresponds to reduced financial trading ability, and a low digit ratio corresponds to a longer penis. That shit is weird.
  • wnevets 7y ago
    People tend to forget just how important hormones can be and just assume everything is because of genes.
    • Zenst 7y ago
      We are also only equally coming around to the thinking that the makeup of bacteria in the stomach has a bigger impact in area's that we have never invisanged before.
    • dekhn 7y ago
      hormones are proteins encoded by genes that affect gene transcription. Many hormones respond to entirely internal signals. So, much of what hormones do have a root cause in genomes (but, there are definitely limits on that statement).
    • refurb 7y ago
      That's an odd comment since hormones are the result of gene expression.
      • tapland 7y ago
        They are usually, but you don't get much variation without issues that are not genetic that affect hormones. Like hormone producing tumours.
      • wnevets 7y ago
        IMO gene expression is very different than what layman like myself mean when we talk about our genes.
• erikgaas 7y ago
  I took a neuroscience course back in the day that discussed findings related to autism. I don't remember everything, but there was a discussion on excess dopamine early in the brain and a later depression of glutamate levels. All in all this would lead to more sparsity of neural activations in the brain. This made sense. Too much dopamine would lead to excess plasticity, causing a normal amount of glutamate to have too great of an effect, so the brain compensates by producing less glutamate, producing the same amount of neural activations but now sparsely spread out in a post-plastic brain. From my naive common sense perspective, it would make sense that an autism prevention would be some mechanism to limit plasticity during development. I'm really stretching argument here, but maybe this has some connection to autism brains "kicking in" early. The connection to estrogen is an interesting one. Estrogen does have an important effect on neurotransmitter receptors, including dopaminergic, but my speculation is worthless here. Is there anyone here that has a better understanding of this that can provide some clarity?
  • soup10 7y ago
    This is hacker news, not biology news, your neuroscience course makes you the expert here.
  • AstralStorm 7y ago
    You're building a theoretical treatment based on a theory you have not validated. (I'm not aware of any reasonable validation in e.g. a model organism at least.) So, go back, and first check or devise a model. Model organism for autism is a very hard problem.
    • therealx 7y ago
      He said his comment is worthless (in a truly medical way), so I don't see the point in your comment. Fwiw I found his comment to be interesting conjecture. I too have many dopamine related issues and until we have a better true understanding, all we can do is hypothesize and guess based on the small bits we do know.
    • im3w1l 7y ago
      I guess this is "how it's done". But why should it be? As long as all the hypotheses he states can be directly measured in humans that should be enough. Treating humans as black boxes isn't necessary anymore. We have very good measuring tools now. I believe we can make much faster progress if we just look inside and use logic inference.
• loceng 7y ago
  Couldn't you classify what you described as early trauma - highly stressful situation? I ask because I would have been considered Asperger's as a child, however was never formally diagnosed, and I had I'd call traumatic, a few childhood experiences with severe pain. It was however a series of events in my early 20s lead me to developing a severe hypersensitivity to sound, which then through trying to problem solve, discovered a sound therapy - with a diagnostic method of determining if the therapy would help before doing it - I did it, and it helped me dramatically, including unblocking whatever developmental blocks had occurred at an early age; I had extremely painful ear infections as a child, very stressful for the nervous system - and at a time of rapid brain development - and without going into more detail now, which I have in the past on HN, whatever coping mechanisms lead to autistic characteristics relating to processing feelings, emotion, focusing, which cascade learning, attention, etc. The sound therapy can potentially help the full autism spectrum, of course what the cause is will likely impact who will benefit from it; you also don't lose any of your skills developed, things just flow easier, and you may have gain access to sensory in a more balanced manner, leading to better self-regulation. The therapy I did is called Auditory Integration Training or Berard AIT for short; there is also another method called the Tomatis method which is apparently more effective if the trauma occurred while still in the womb. There are other sound therapies out there claiming to be beneficial, marketing themselves efficiently, however I'm uncertain of their methods - something I someday hope to test adequately with proper research comparing sound therapies.
  • Zenst 7y ago
    Hard to clarify, and just earliest memories and maybe trauma solidified those event in memory, really hard to speculate even from personal experience. Also of note I was diagnosed officially in my late 40's, I was tested for autism when I was 5 (remember that vividly) and they deemed me 50/50, which in the 60's - autism was either yes or no with no aspergers or other half-way definitions. Interesting how you mention sound sensitivity at a later age and I would say puberty saw many senses become more acute. Hearing still today (which is not fun living above a crack-house) in my 50's, it is still impressive. I, also developed my own coping mechanisms and in many situations, people would have no clue that I was on the spectrum. Equally I'm aware of my kryptonite issues, so avoidance is as with many, whilst not ideal, a good plan B coping mechanism. But with sound, and many coping mechanisms we develop in out brain, I do find falling asleep hard as those mechanisms take focus and the conflict of sleep and awake fall foul in such situations. But I just love my bluetooth headphones, listening to music and whilst not drown out the outside world (I don't use noise canceling and play music low), it is enough to dull outside sounds that can prove annoying - which are more annoying the more tired I am, as in unable to focus them out. But you know what my most favorite things in life still is today - a walk in the snow with nobody around. Kinda my happy place and living in outer London, one in which a good memory has its upsides as not that many opportunities to actually do it.
• godelski 7y ago
  Interesting about the digit ratio. As a counter example my ring and index are approximately the same length on both hands, left hand index is only slightly smaller. I've never been diagnosed with autism though (my friend who used to work very closely with autistic kids has suggested that I might be slightly in the spectrum because some characteristics but that's about it). Could be a pattern. Could be a pattern that doesn't actually exist. I think we need more samples (I'd imagine some selection bias on HN)
• jasonlotito 7y ago
  > But would I change if I could go back in time and become normal is a question I have asked myself and the answer for me is - no Just as long as people remember that this is a personal decision, and not one you can make for others. I wonder what I would do for my children, both of whom have autism and who I love. But my older child is non-verbal, still wears diapers, and is a flight risk. He cannot take care of himself. I worry what will happen when my wife and I can no longer take care of him adequately. Adult autistic support is not great. But what will he lose if I "cure" him. Both boys are happy, affectionate, and they are the lights of my life. They are far happier than those who are far more "successful" in life. It's not easy.
• m463 7y ago
  in regard to the digit ratio: I notice my fingers are similar in length if I look at the top of my hand. But looking at the palm of my hand, as shown in the picture on the wikipedia page, they look very different in length.
• lonelappde 7y ago
  Autism in males is supposed correlated to high testosterone and long ring fingers, opposite of this article. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn509-pointer-for-autism/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn509-pointer-for-autis...
• tarsinge 7y ago
  Maybe I’m misreading but the article says the opposite that it’s a short ratio (short index) that is associated with asperger and autistic traits.