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Is autism the legacy of humans evolving the ability to innovate?
- hereme888 6y agoInteresting. Mutations have their uses, but not all. The increasing rates of Autism now are most likely the result of increasingly advanced maternal age for pregnancies. Healthy BMI, cardiovascular fitness, and youth are some of the key factors to a healthy pregnancy. Edit: I didn't mean to say that advanced maternal age is the "only" reason for autism. I was just quoting what I was taught to be one of the main factors for the increasing rates of autism. Some can argue it's increased testing, etc.
- irrational 6y agoMaybe... but anecdotally we had an autistic son born when my wife was 26. But we later had 4 more children (including 2 more boys) who were born throughout her 30s and none of them are autistic. I think there is more going on than simple advanced maternal age.
- jimbob45 6y agoWas that a difficult conversation with your wife about whether to keep trying for kids knowing your first was autistic?
- zikzak 6y agoI don't know about this person but I have an acquaintance who is a autistic and has three children, all on the spectrum, and they love them all. It never occurred to them that they should not have more children.
- david-gpu 6y agoI know a couple that underwent sterilization because they did not want a younger sibling to be burdened with the care of an autistic older brother. They were also concerned that they would not be able to adequately raise another child while also caring their autistic firstborn.
- zikzak 6y agoI don't judge, it's a very personal decision and there's so much that goes into raising any child. Our two anecdotes illustrate how easy it is to find people at either end of this continuum. This stuff is very difficult for people to talk about.
- irrational 6y agoNo, we never had any sort of conversation of that sort.
- senorsmile 6y agoI find this a strange thing to ask. An autist is defined as such by having the following distinct characteristics that make them unique (I have customized each criterion based on myself and my children): - difficulty in social interactions (with neurotypicals) - repetitive behaviors, superior memory and highly focused interests resulting in expert level knowledge - greater sensitivities, physically and emotionally (when compared to neurotypicals. If I had had a neurotypical child, I'd be worried that I wouldn't know how to relate to them and that they'd have to try much harder to succeed.
- hereme888 6y agoOh for sure there's more to it than advanced maternal age. These things are also probabilistic to some degree (X chances of having a child with X disease). I know many women who gave birth in their 40s to healthy children.
- amelius 6y agoSource?
- hereme888 6y agoThe OBGYN director taught me this during a lecture at my hospital (I'm a medical student). He's also a PhD. It was casual conversation, so I don't have the sources.
- icelancer 6y agohttps://www.spectrumnews.org/news/link-parental-age-autism-explained/ https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/link-parental-age-autism-e...
- QuercusMax 6y agoThat certainly doesn't explain an awful lot of cases. Two of the most fit women I knew had autistic kids in their early 20s. And "blame the mother" has a really bad history for autism.
- notahacker 6y agoSurely increased emphasis on actually diagnosing it has to be one of the bigger drivers.
- astrange 6y agoI once read a theory that it was caused by different prenatal nutrition and lack of Vitamin D, which of course involves the mother but I wouldn't call blaming her since, as they say, it takes a village. Not sure if people currently believe this or not.
- madamelic 6y ago> lack of vitamin D Wouldn't that mean we would see more autistic kids further away from the equator and born from April to June?
- ruined 6y agoautism does correlate with birth month https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296777/?report=classic https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3296777/?report... and does seem to be more prevalent in particular latitudes, though that may be an effect of social/industrial/economic conditions.
- madamelic 6y agoThanks! That was the perfect paper.
- ArkanExplorer 6y agoSomali children in Sweden are 3-4x more likely to be Autistic than Swedish children: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23221308_Prevalence_of_autism_in_children_born_to_Somali_parents_living_in_Sweden_A_brief_report https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23221308_Prevalence... 73% of pregnant Somali women in Sweden are Vitamin D deficient vs 5% of pregnant Swedish women: https://www.alliedacademies.org/articles/vitamin-dbinding-protein-in-somali-women-living-in-sweden-was-low-and-unaffectedby-treatment-8802.html https://www.alliedacademies.org/articles/vitamin-dbinding-pr...
- h0l0cube 6y ago> The increasing rates of Autism now are most likely the result of increasingly advanced maternal age for pregnancies Wiki seems to say it's either even split between parents, or leans paternal: > It is not known whether mutations that arise spontaneously in autism and other neuropsychiatric disorders come mainly from the mother or the father, or whether the mutations are associated with parental age.[74] However, recent studies have identified advancing paternal age as a significant indicator for ASD. There's also the other factors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism#Causing_factors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology_of_autism#Causing... But as another mentioned, the increased awareness and access to medical professionals could also explain an upward trend in diagnosis.
- schwartzworld 6y ago> the increased awareness and access to medical professionals could also explain an upward trend in diagnosis. I don't see how any other hypothesis can even be considered until this is controlled for. How many people diagnosed as autistic today would have, had they lived in the past, been considered as having mental illness or intellectual disability? Would those who are high-functioning even be diagnosed as having anything at all, or just thought of as eccentric or a little touched?
- h0l0cube 6y agoWhat bothers me more is that people on this forum, which is most likely over-represented by the broad autism phenotype, and so quick to 'other' autism. Might not even have dawned on them that they might be talking a little about themselves.
- schwartzworld 6y agoFair point.
- dd36 6y agoIt’s the Back to Sleep campaign that started in the 90s. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaav5188/tab-article-info https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaav5188/tab-art... Basically, sleeping is important to brain development in new borns and infants and forced back sleeping is hugely disruptive. Hence the increase in autism rates for kids born in 90s and later.
- hattar 6y agoIt seems like a large leap from “voles develop social bonding problems when their sleep is disrupted in early life” to “making babies sleep on their backs increases the rate of autism”. Is there any other data that would indicate a correlation between back sleeping in infants and autism rates?
- dd36 6y agoThat’s actually not what made the connection for me. I noticed my son developed much more quickly than his peers and we stomach slept him. Also my friends got much worse sleep than we did, which surely meant so did their babies. My son hated back sleeping. He’d sleep 3 hours at a time versus through the night. So I looked up when forced back sleeping became a thing and it was strongly correlated to when autism exploded. I think there may be a Euro study. Then I read this recently https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/38/eaba0398 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/38/eaba0398 And I emailed the authors about my theory and they sent me the voles study. They can’t do a human study for ethical reasons. Maybe they can find a natural study ala Israel and peanut butter puffs but forced back sleeping is prevalent worldwide as it reduces SIDS. We were comfortable stomach sleeping my son with good air circulation because of this study: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/380273 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/... Back sleeping may have adverse side effects beyond low sleep quality for baby and parents. Frankly, it’s well established that sleep matters a lot for all brains. It’s not hard to make the leap that reduced sleep quality during important stages of life might matter a lot.
- BurnAphterRead 6y agoSo, this is to be taken with a grain of salt: A nurse once told me about this. I guess in the 90's(?) or so, there were a lot of children that were cognitively deficient to the extent that they required specialized care and such, but didn't necessarily fall into a category that would allot the parents funding. Lo and behold, autism becomes one of those categories, and the medical industrial complex has no qualms helping families to find funding. Autism is a perfect dragnet, lots of features to latch on to. Something like that. So maybe a lot of the autism diagnoses fall into the category of "we can't define this, but this family is fucked without the funds, so that's autism." But I never validated his claims, just food for thought. Good luck in the rabbit hole.
- Fricken 6y agoSimon Baron-Cohen the autism researcher is brother of Sacha Baron Cohen the comedian.
- vmilner 6y agoCousin.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoFor a moment I thought you were joking. Thanks for the info.
- libx 6y agoAutism is the effect of vaccines.
- throwawinsider 6y agoHaving autism means that in some situations you will be at the bottom in social status, while in others people will worship you. So how you weigh these payoffs is what largely determines if autism is good for you.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- im3w1l 6y agoHeadlines like these reinforce my conviction that it was a mistake to group asperger under autism.
- jozvolskyef 6y agoThis article fills a gap in my vocabulary for someone who shares some traits associated with ASD but doesn't suffer from any negative effects, i.e. is not in the scope of the medical autistic spectrum. The word is systemizing or being systematic. Autistic spectrum disorders then manifest in systemizing behaviour, but that doesn't mean only people with autism are systematic.
- skissane 6y ago> This article fills a gap in my vocabulary for someone who shares some traits associated with ASD but doesn't suffer from any negative effects, i.e. is not in the scope of the medical autistic spectrum Another phrase you could add to your vocabulary to describe that is "broad autism phenotype" (BAP). People with BAP have significantly more autistic traits than the average person does, but not to the extent that a diagnosis of ASD is warranted. BAP is very common in two groups of people (i) close blood relatives of people with ASD (parents, unaffected siblings, etc); (ii) people in STEM professions. (Of course, those two groups are overlapping–ASD is more common in children of STEM professionals than in the general population) The term "systematising" is specifically associated with Simon Baron-Cohen's theories of the nature and causes of ASD, which are controversial. By contrast, the term "BAP" is much more neutral, it doesn't presume any particular theory about what ASD is or where it comes from.
- jozvolskyef 6y agoThank you, that is an interesting insight. Personally I don't find the Empathising–systemising theory convincing, it seems as a false dichotomy to me. On the other hand I just remembered that my father's use of the word systematic in the above sense predates this theory because that's how he happened to describe me when I was a child.
- majjgepolja 6y agoTIL. Is BAP comorbid with ADD too?
- skissane 6y ago
- chrisjharris 6y agoI am now quite curious about this book. One thing which seemes puzzling and distinctive about autism is that it appears to manifest much more in males than females (I think somewhat over 4x) - I'd be interested to see how Baron-Cohen addresses that.
- galgalesh 6y agoIn case you didn't know this: autism diagnosis is heavily biased towards how autism typically expresses in males. Autism expresses differently in females, causing to a very high number of women on the spectrum being misdiagnosed as having disorders such as anorexia, OCD or anxiety.
- caddemon 6y agoThe general consensus in the field is that 4x is an overestimate for the reasons you describe, but the "ground truth" would still be increased prevalence in men. Interestingly there are even some mouse models of Autism where the male behavior is what one might expect from an ASD model, but the females don't really behave differently from controls. There are of course also some models where you can get erratic female behavior. Ultimately I think there's just a lot we don't understand yet.
- LaundroMat 6y agoWomen and girls with autism are believed to be much better at hiding their social awkwardness and display more socially accepted behaviour. This leads to more anxiety and depression, which makes correct diagnosis even harder.
- dogma1138 6y agoHow does this explain the comorbidities associated with autism? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditions_comorbid_to_autism_spectrum_disorders https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditions_comorbid_to_autis... It seems to somewhat focus on the more high functioning/savant cases than those who have to wear diapers through their entire life and suffer from severe metabolic and immune system issues.
- Forge36 6y agoSickle cell anemia? 1 gene malaria, two copies a disease (I might have cause wrong).
- dogma1138 6y agoBut that doesn’t explain the multiple genetic and chromosomal disorders that are associated with autism. It’s almost like autism is a side effect of disorders that are associated with cognitive impairment.
- caddemon 6y agoPersonally I think it's more likely that we are grouping a bunch of distinct disorders under the "Autism" label right now, because psychiatric diagnosis is still quite crude. Origins, mechanisms, etc. could be widely different while still causing some overlap in symptom profile. Imagine if we had to distinguish between different infections using only fuzzy behavioral definitions for example.
- pardavis 6y agoSee also the similar book NeuroTribes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeuroTribes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeuroTribes
- senorsmile 6y agoThis looks like a great book that agrees with my life experience.
- morpheos137 6y agoA big problem with the label "autism" is that it does not seem to map to one, unified, underlying condition. Intense "special interests" may be useful for some kinds of problem solving but actually maladaptive for others.
- atleta 6y agoBaron-Cohen indeed created a tool to measure it based on his theory which he hints at in this interview: he says autism means that you have a high 'systemizing quitient' AND a low EQ. And of course it's a spectrum. I don't know the validity of this, but it's his rather specific definition. (And it's not about specific interests in general.)
- caddemon 6y agoI think that characterization misses some key symptoms in certain profiles of ASD though. Sensory sensitivity can be hugely important. There was a really interesting study where they took a few common ASD mouse model mutations and instead of mutating all neurons, only targeted primary sensory neurons (so nothing in the brain was directly altered!). These mice developed to have very similar behavioral profile to the "normal" models - not just the core sensory symptoms, but more general anxiety, increased preference for objects over peers, etc.
- LaundroMat 6y agoI can't look it up now, but some theories define it as "context-blindness".
- majjgepolja 6y agoInteresting. There's a hypothesis about ADHD that it's a trait of evolution for Hunter-gatherer lifestyle, with even a few studies favoring the opinion. But that doesn't explain many symptoms of ADHD. Btw, with many 'gifted' children having ADHD, I am curious whether there is any reason / correlation for it.
- lookingforsome 6y agoThen why in the western world do so many adults and medical professionals try to suppress ADHD with amphetamines? edit: do you happen to have a source to this theory of linking ADHD to the evolution of hunter-gatherers?
- alphameese 6y agoI don’t think it’s correct to say ADHD is being suppressed. People with ADHD take amphetamines to make daily life easier, like actually being able to stick to a schedule, or maintain a clean house.
- majjgepolja 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis
- nullsense 6y agoCos shit is actually debilitating and positively mal adapted to modern life.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoI am so tired of these sorts of articles. Even in a piece proposing that "autism is based on genes that are 70,000 years old and we are basically pattern seekers" they fail to really make the point "Maybe it isn't, per se, a defect at all." I imagine the author is going for that, but the article doesn't really get there. The article comes across like "Autistic guy likes his defect and wants to prettify it by claiming it's a feature not a bug (while we snicker up our sleeves behind his back)." When do I get to see some headlines asking "Are they really defective? Or did the world just go and get all busier and noisier than in the past while humans kind of mostly stayed the same?" Re sensory issues (which are often associated with ASD): My parents couldn't stand noise. They were tyrannical about keeping things quiet so they could sleep. No one accused them of being autistic. They were just old and set in their ways and spent all or part of their childhoods on a farm where things were quieter than the modern world. Kids used to be called shy if they weren't social butterflies. Now we take them to a specialist and get them labels like autism and selective mutism and treat them like defective weirdos. Not everyone is a social butterfly. The human race was never mostly social butterflies. Also also: social skills are learned behaviors. If kids get less attention from other people and spend all their time staring at a TV or something instead, is it really shocking that they don't have much social savvy these days? Won't this show most obviously in those kids who innately need to work at it to learn it and don't naturally soak it up like a sponge? (Edited because autocorrect is sometimes an annoying butt.)
- kodah 6y agoI've pondered this a lot and I mostly agree, though your harsh criticism of the flowery articles is a bit... harsh. Personally, I think when people don't get understood in outright saying their point (eg: "I'm not defective, you being a little bit more understanding would go a long way") they end up having to paint imagery for people, and this is the kind of output you get. It's also a good reminder that the functional degrees of autism only share characteristics, it is still possible (to my knowledge) that these are entirely unrelated and only related on the facade.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoI didn't consider it to be flowery. My oldest son likely qualifies for a diagnosis somewhere on the autism spectrum. He was never formally diagnosed because I homeschooled him, so I didn't need a diagnosis to accommodate his needs. I was his teacher and his mom and I could be kind to my child because I felt like it without filling out forms and defending my right to help him make his life work. He thinks in pictures and talking with him sometimes feels a little like talking to someone who speaks English as a second language because he makes odd language errors of the same sort as he translates my words into pictures in his mind and then translates pictures in his mind into words to engage in conversation. Given that this is a labor intensive thing for him, it's hardly shocking he's not very social. Given that a picture is worth a thousand words, he can also be very verbose when you do get him talking. He's in his thirties and still lives with me. Over the course of more than three decades I have gotten into the habit of using image-rich language because it's more effective communication for dealing with my child. I adore him and think he's funny and wonderful and the apple of my eye. I've always found him delightful and I wondered why he did so many weird things as a kid rather than wondering how to break him and force him to "act normal." I have speculated at times that my words seem to be powerful because of this habitual image-rich communication style. That's a two-edged sword and sometimes gets me in hot water when my words hit hard on sensitive subjects. It's possible I didn't think it flowery because of this aspect of my life. And, so, I don't know what you are talking about or what relevance that has to my frustrations with a world that wants to say "These kids are defective" instead of wondering at what widespread changes have led to this seemingly sudden "epidemic" of supposedly defective kids who supposedly have sensory issues, lack social skills, etc.
- jb775 6y agoFor conversation's sake, my non-scientific guesses on this are that autism may be caused by one of the following: 1) A result of humans living longer and therefore having babies at a later age (i.e. older sperm and eggs) 2) A stage in human evolution where the human body is trying to figure out how to maximize efficient brain power in relation to amount of energy available (i.e. our caveman instincts aren't as important nowadays, so what brainpower-energy could be shifted elsewhere?") 3) Something unnatural that's recently been introduced to human life (which I feel like should be able to be figured out if the families of autistic people answered extensive questionnaires without lobbyists getting in the way).
- kshacker 6y ago4) lower infant mortality and in general better healthcare - think about it
- kypro 6y agoGiven the amount of scientific and technological progress the human race had made thanks to people on the spectrum it seems fairly obvious to suspect there would be selection pressure for autistically-minded individuals. I'm sure there are factors that make someone more likely to present as autistic though. I think there is some evidence to suggest that prenatal hormone levels (and specifically testosterone) have some influence, and I believe some researchers have even gone so far to say that the autistic brain is wired like the male brain but to an extreme. It may just be that older woman are more likely to have suboptimal hormone levels which makes these kind of developmental extremes more likely.
- BurnAphterRead 6y agoFetal imprinting, perhaps. It'd be hard to quantify. But with all the societal shifts occurring around the 70's, economics drastically shifted. I'm not even going to pretend like I know anything about maternity, but with the constant slew of shit the modern human has to deal with, usually something somehow novel, I'd be willing to point fingers at a shift in the baseline hormone profile before during and after pregnancy. Particularly in fetal development. There's undoubtedly research on the effects of elevated glucocorticoid levels in pre-, during, and postnatal development. But that's only one end.
- johndoe42377 6y agoFuck, no. Autism is inability to deal with ones own emotions due to some genetic mutations. It is clearly and verifiable inherited and carried by pretty women who are less affected, being compensated by motherly instincts for social enpirements. Women are traditionally more emotional and rely on feeling, so society (families) readily accept autistic women as long as they do their duties. Physical beauty (mostly face) guarantee a marriage. This is how autistic traits are not washed out. Each autistic person develop his own behavioural patterns to compensate being overwhelmed by his own emotions. (Depending on severity these patterns vary from Turing to Rainman so to speak). This is the main principle. Everything else is just bullshit.
- sjg007 6y agoI would take this with several grains of salt.
- Cyberthal 6y agoAutism is correlated with advanced parental age. Perhaps that improves the evolutionary adaptiveness of a child with a systematizing mindset who will innovate long-term benefits. Consider it. What do old parents imply? Long life expectancy, social stability, slow life strategy. A systematizing kid with low EQ will do well in such a small tribe. Relationships will be simple and long term investments will pay off. Now look at how fatherless kids turn out well-adapted for a fast life strategy. That's probably a basic mammalian trait for social species with pair-bonding. Look at how young male elephants are feral unless properly led by old bulls. But I bet autism is exclusive to humans and maybe chimps.