24 ms·

Brain overgrowth dictates autism severity, new research suggests

250 points by jdmark 2y ago

hn8305823 2y ago
That damn food pyramid
im3w1l 2y ago
So is it in some sense similar to having a brain tumour? Some part of the brain is growing too much and depriving others of space?
- Rhapso 2y ago
  I'm biased to the evolutionary argument that neurodiversity is a survival trait in social animals. This theory, especially if the outcome is effectively random bias in cognitive development, would fit that.
  - Rinzler89 2y ago
    >I'm biased to the evolutionary argument that neurodiversity is a survival trait in social animals. Can you please explain what you mean by this?
    - Rhapso 2y ago
      https://society5.com/leadership/neurodiversity-evolution/ https://society5.com/leadership/neurodiversity-evolution/ seems a decent summary
      - Rinzler89 2y ago
        But to me that reads like different statement than yours of neurodiversity being a survival trait, to which I have to disagree. Being a neurodiverse, or more commonly known "on the spectrum", is a guaranteed way to get bullied (or worse) by your peers who are not. How is that supposed to help with survival? Some neurodiverse kids and even adults get bullied so hard they commit self termination (to avoid using the 's' word). That's exactly the opposite of helping with survival. Helping with survival to me means having features that help you get accepted by the heard and with finding a mate to reproduce, not features that get you shunned and outcasted till you end up wirtten off the gene pool.
        hcfman 2y ago
        That’s a bit simplistic. They might also invent a personal computer the income from which very much helps them survive.
        Rinzler89 2y ago
        You don't need to invent something that makes you a billionaire to survive. Plenty of dumbass people out there survive just fine. Survival to me means having a happy life with friends and family and passing your genes on, not being a quirky, lonely tech billionaire.
        Rhapso 2y ago
        The root misunderstanding is the "social species" part of my statement. Neurodiversity benefits the species, so it will be selected for as a survival trait for the species, even if it is recessive or those who express it never reproduce. Those "genetically adjacent" benefit and keep the traits alive If you think survival traits mean being healthy and happy, ask Darwin why the evolution of caterpillars killed his faith in god.
        Rhapso 2y ago
        Like all variation in traits, going beyond 2 standard deviations tends to not be beneficial. We don't get to have variation without also having the potential for too much of it. Welcome to the messy stochastic search algorithm that is online approximator for Causal Entropic Force.
        sleepydog 2y ago
        I see it more as a survival trait for a population, not an individual. An individual does not need to procreate for a population to benefit from any trait they may have. In that sense, the trait may be a disadvantage for the individual, but increase the well-being of the population at large. An unimaginative example would be an autistic individual whose condition enables them to make a life-saving scientific or mathematical breakthrough, but due to the same condition ultimately dies alone and childless.
        2y ago
  - natpalmer1776 2y ago
    Neurodiversity as an evolutionary survival trait is such a beautiful concept I haven't heard before, but it makes so much sense! I think the concept pairs really well with the idea of social selection as a derivative of natural selection in which social structures create natural divisions in a population's gene expression to disfavor traits that don't benefit the population even if they benefit the individual.
    - coldtea 2y ago
      Here's some stuff on that: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/adhd-traits-might-have-helped-hunter-gatherers-collect-more-food-while-foraging-study-suggests-180983824/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/adhd-traits-might-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_versus_farmer_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_versus_farmer_hypothesi... https://theconversation.com/how-our-autistic-ancestors-played-an-important-role-in-human-evolution-73477 https://theconversation.com/how-our-autistic-ancestors-playe... https://hms.harvard.edu/news/autism-evolution https://hms.harvard.edu/news/autism-evolution https://www.wired.com/story/autism-ancestors-evolution/ https://www.wired.com/story/autism-ancestors-evolution/
  - emptysongglass 2y ago
    We don't need to turn all pathologies into a positive trait to be cherished. We see this all too often today with e.g. ADHD (from which I suffer). They are not our superhero abilities and they often come with extremely debilitating consequences. I know many people on the spectrum and they suffer.
    - Rhapso 2y ago
      Oh agreed, but all "positive attributes" are problems at extremes. I think this is similar. Literally everything we pathologize around mental health (that isn't a direct deficit) is "normal at lower intensities"
    - twojacobtwo 2y ago
      I also suffer from ADD (non-H type). While I definitely acknowledge the validity of your point, having a view of the other side of the coin often helps to cope with these things. Not just cope, but moreso to keep in mind where we might best apply our efforts to have the greatest effect in our favor. It certainly helped me to have things reframed in such ways. I think it's more a matter of degrees than a wholesale one view vs the other.
      - _yb2s 2y ago
        ADD has been renamed inattentive-type ADHD
        twojacobtwo 2y ago
        I didn't know that. Thank you. I'll probably stick with ADD for most things though, because it seems like it's easier to say (barring my own qualifier for clarity) and people generally understand the distinction already. But this will be helpful in more technical circumstances, I imagine.
        _yb2s 2y ago
        Nowadays the term ADD isn't even used casually by doctors or other people with ADHD... if someone told me they had ADD I would assume they were either self diagnosed, or diagnosed a long time ago and self treating, but not communicating with doctors or the ADHD community for at least a decade. The latter is important because there have been HUGE advances in practical advice on managing ADHD. Look at podcasts like "Hacking ADHD" and "How To ADHD."
- kylebenzle 2y ago
  They are not similar at all really. Autism is correlated to, "accelerated formation of neurons"(1) and "an increase in the number of neural connections"(2). That partially explains some savant-like traits being connected to autism. Outside of that John Travolta movie where he got the brain tumor and got super smart I don't think people are evolving tumors to increase intelligence. [1] Article [2] https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/in-autism-too-many-brain-connections-may-be-at-root-of-condition/ https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/in-autism-too-many-brain-con...
- sharpshadow 2y ago
  I would say no. A tumour is locally and doesn’t cover the whole brain as they found out that autism is linked to overall more brain organelles.
- robwwilliams 2y ago
  No. We are far from a “common cause” answer to autism or many other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions.
pieter_mj 2y ago
Overgrowth is a normal process in the development of the fetal brain. It is followed by a reorganization, which means the pruning and migration of neurons to the right locations in the brain.
hcfman 2y ago
It’s a shame that some media still call this a disease where it is clearly not a disadvantage in some contexts for some instances. Where’s as the words disease doesn’t conjure up any impressions of upside.
- r_singh 2y ago
  What’s more is that people aren’t sensitive to it. Unsaid social rules really make the lives of some of the differently abled who have an eye for things the rest of us don’t difficult. Heart goes out for all those on the spectrum dealing with family and social issues
  - chrisknyfe 2y ago
    that's because unsaid social rules are part of the structures that keep rich elites on top, and help them filter out "pretenders" to nobility.
    - DiscourseFan 2y ago
      Yes and no, as in any case to challenge power you'd need a rigorous understanding of it, which you can't get if you're severely autistic. The greatest works of humanity have been made with social co-operation.
      - masfuerte 2y ago
        And the greatest atrocities of humanity have been made with social co-operation.
        DiscourseFan 2y ago
        That's trivial. Atrocity goes hand in hand with power, the same power that decimates a whole people also builds the city over their graves. The powerless cannot challenge power, there is nothing honourable in ineptitude. If you want to feel good about yourself for being weak you can go back to church and pray that a god will save you, but for those who wish to triumph in the world there is only one path available, and it is not bloodless.
sharpshadow 2y ago
This is a phenomenal discovery and treatment could consist of both increasing the space for the brain or decreasing the mass of the brain. Would be super cool if there could be found a way to enlarge the skull size during growth to have enough space for that special autism brains.
- orlp 2y ago
  > and treatment could consist of both increasing the space for the brain or decreasing the mass of the brain I'll pass, thanks.
- lmz 2y ago
  Or early abortion if it's detectable in utero.
  - yareal 2y ago
    The term for this is "eugenics", and it's generally considered a negative.
    - lofenfew 2y ago
      If its not genetic, which autism isn't, then it has nothing to do with eugenics. People have the right to choose how they raise children, trying to dictate that is much more similar to eugenics imo
      - yareal 2y ago
        Autism is considered primarily genetic and it's inheritable. What we don't yet understand is the complex set of genetic interactions that result in ASD. Here's one study: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215632120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215632120 but there are dozens if not hundreds more like this. Your claim that ASD is not genetic is extraordinary and counter to the prevailing scientific understanding, and requires significant evidence to back up.
    - lmz 2y ago
zachmu 2y ago
This reminds me of a twitter thread I read a few years ago making this prediction: https://www.tinygnomes.com/qwiki.cgi?mode=previewSynd&uuid=BCXKLB9VJN4XU8EU4VQ2PSX6K4QT https://www.tinygnomes.com/qwiki.cgi?mode=previewSynd&uuid=B... We had already known from autopsies that neural density in certain brain regions is much higher among autists.
- willsmith72 2y ago
  > There are 1st grade girls in 2021 that have asses that didn’t used to show up until 16 This is certainly... something
  - watersb 2y ago
    It's either horrid or a broken machine translation to English.
    - tluyben2 2y ago
      Not related (at least as far as I can see), but I read a lot of startup materials translated from Portugal Portuguese to English and often was quite confused about what it said, indeed sentences like the gp here. Then I learned Portugal Portuguese proper and found out its sayings and humor that doesn't translate. Mostly because it's not funny (to me, which makes it hard to translate) but also because there is nothing useful to translate it to in English (sometimes there is in Scottish and Irish but often not in England or US english).
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - Paul-Craft 2y ago
      I don't think it's machine translation. The preceding sentence is this: > The best illustration of “spillover” is the incredible increase in the size of the ass and thighs in girls. This is not due to squatting or implants, because you see it at very young ages.
    - 2y ago
derbOac 2y ago
This growth pattern has been documented pretty well? I used to teach it in undergrad courses. Autism spectrum issues are associated with overgrowth and then deceleration more than normal. This seems like a hyperexperimental version of it. Still interesting and good to see corroborating evidence, also useful as a model for therapies and other things.
- SubiculumCode 2y ago
  Th predominant view in the field has been that there is early cerebral overgrowth followed by either normalization or regression of brain volume in adolescence. However, this conclusion is based on cross-sectional comparisons. This means, they look at different people at different ages, and make inferences on developmental trajectories based on these cross-sectional, age-related patterns. While this is often a starting point, cross-sectional research can suffer from sampling biases. A huge weakness in autism neuroimaging research is the un-representativeness of their samples. Nearly a third of individuals with autism have severe intellectual impairments (IQ's < 70) yet represent less than 1% of neuroimaging samples. Individuals with other immense behavioral, sensory and language challenges are also rarely make it through the rigors of imaging protocols. A rare exception has been imaging research that performed brain imaging in very young children during natural sleep. and thus can hold still enough for quality MRI images to be acquired. This has allowed imaging of autistic children aged 2-6 years to include autism over a whole range of severities, challenges, and intellectual abilities. This presents a problem though. The research that suggested there is brain overgrowth in early childhood sampled from a wide range of autism phenotypes and severities, while the normalization evidence in adolescents and adults came from autistic participants with normal ranged IQs and less severe challenges, a clear cross-sectional sampling bias that threatens the validity of the overgrowth normalization story. Moreover, research indicated that disproportionate brain size in autism was associated with slower intellectual improvements with development. I and my colleagues thus hypothesized that the discrepancy would be removed if we can follow the same children from childhood into adolescence longitudinally. Using a number of behavioral techniques and a lots of care and dedication, our team managed to acquire brain data in a broad spectrum of autism phenotypes and severity levels from early childhood into early adolescence. We reported the results of our study in Biological Psychiatry Lee in 2021. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8089123/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8089123/ (open access). Our conclusion: Longitudinal evidence does not support the notion that early brain overgrowth is followed by volumetric regression, at least from early to late childhood.
danlugo92 2y ago
Autism is a mental illness not a physical illness.
- squigz 2y ago
  What is the difference, really? Our minds exist in a physical state, and our moods/thoughts/reactions/etc are just configurations of physical states.
  - threecheese 2y ago
    And further, these configurations are driven by chemical exchanges that are entirely biological in nature, regulated by other configurations, and all driven by a combination of gene expression, experiences, and the physical environment.
- llamaLord 2y ago
  Ummm sorry what? It's been demonstrated more times than I can count that Autism has a physiological basis, not a psychological one.
  - danlugo92 2y ago
    So the people that get better have their brains size reduced?
- _yb2s 2y ago
  It's not an illness at all- it's a neurodevelopmental disorder. Although not well understood, it involves physically measurable differences in brain development during childhood like the one this post is about, and cannot be treated with things like psychotherapy.
  - faeriechangling 2y ago
    It correlates to physically measurable brain differences, autism is considered heterogenous for a reason and has no single cause. Given autistics don’t even seem to have the same symptoms, severity of symptoms, or etiologies, and opinions on what treatment even constitutes, I also hesitate to make any strong statements about what may or may not be effective medical treatment for them. There’s a reason Americans research on autism has to use RDOC domains which at least gives some insight into specific symptoms and their severity so hopefully this heterogeneity problem which results in really bad treatment options and guidance for autistic patients will get better.
tenacious_tuna 2y ago
For those who's instinctive approach to autism (or other flavors of significant neruodivergence) is to treat it as something that has inherent tradeoffs, or as something that "obviously" people would want to manage or choose to not have when given the option: I highly recommend this article [1] and the book written by the same author, to recontextualize autism (in specific) and neurodiversity (in general) not as things to be managed but as forms of diversity in the human expression to be wholly welcomed in wider society. Put differently: Autism is not something to be managed away. > I don't think anyone who was somehow given the choice of autism or no autism at birth would choose autism would they? I test in the statistically-likely range for autism on multiple diagnostic tests, though I don't carry a diagnosis from a psychiatric professional, so grain of salt, etc; but I find this kind of hypothetical offensive and degrading. It rings so much of how we approached queer identities throughout the years: blindly assuming that because wider society has difficulty interacting with autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people that THOSE PEOPLE would prefer to be like those more neurotypical members. I like my brain. I don't want it to change. I don't want to be different. I don't want to be treated as someone suffering some condition, or like there's "tradeoffs" in my experience of the world that're any more significant or worthy of commentary than anyone else's experience of the world. [1]: https://neuroqueer.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools/ https://neuroqueer.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools/
- deleted 2y ago
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- llamaLord 2y ago
  Just be careful with this line of reasoning though please. It's already hard enough for people outside of the USA to access treatment for things like ADHD when they want to, it doesn't help to have a bunch of people walking around saying "it's not actually a disadvantage at all... It's REALLY more of a gift". Without my ADHD meds, I have ZERO ability to actually leverage the "gift" part...
  - outside415 2y ago
    those ADHD meds are exceptionally addictive and long term damaging to your body/heart/mind. be careful.
giantg2 2y ago
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petercooper 2y ago
Also macrocephaly is significantly more common in autistic people than the general population (that is, macrocephaly is a head circumference at the 97th percentile or higher, but ~20% of autistic people have it).
SteveNew 2y ago
This essentially can become a blood test for autism, or at least to identify babies at risk of autism, right?
- shermantanktop 2y ago
  Sounds like we might be back to measuring heads with calipers, just like in the old days.
  - Muromec 2y ago
    Do we throw the ones with heads too small or too big off the cliff? Once we coup the government through AI-hype I mean Edit: sorry, wrong chat
    - b112 2y ago
      Then after we "fix" autism, all human progress ceases, and society slowly falls apart. It's not 'normals' that shake and bake society. It aberratics that do.
tezza 2y ago
This is the best I could find of the actual paper This research has a very small sample size (n=31) Also indicated by the scatter plots too. From the research: “total of 10 toddlers with ASD and 6 controls ... In a 2021 batch, we measured BCOs from 10 ASD and 5 controls.“ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380876463_Embryonic_origin_of_two_ASD_subtypes_of_social_symptom_severity_the_larger_the_brain_cortical_organoid_size_the_more_severe_the_social_symptoms https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380876463_Embryonic...
- SubiculumCode 2y ago
  lol The sample size in induced pluripotent stem cell research is often like this because of how laborious it is, and cutting edge. Moroever, while the parent sample is small, it doesn't mean that number of samples per individual is small. I haven't read the paper yet, but if its like what our team is doing, we take blood, and turn the cells there into neurons, then organoids.
  - tezza 2y ago
    I can see that the research makes many organoid samples (4000+) mentioned in the paper. This is good to validate the organoid results are consistent. however, then correlating the consistent organoid attributes back to attributes of a small parent sample group is weaker on small sample groups than larger ones. here the parent group is tiny… and the severe ASD sufferers is even smaller (n=2 or 3 by my understanding) great foundational research! but surely larger group sizes are required before correlation is confirmed
    - SubiculumCode 2y ago
      Absolutely!
robwwilliams 2y ago
These summary is just wrong wrt this study: >”Now that Courchesne and Muotri have established that brain overgrowth begins in the womb, they hope to pinpoint its cause, in a bid to develop a therapy that might ease intellectual and social functioning for those with the condition.” There is a slight difference between “beginning in the womb” snd beginning in some odd organoid derived from blood cells. Autism research imho tends to be flaky and this type of press release does not help.
- koolala 2y ago
  flakey + overfunded = published success
- krisoft 2y ago
  I don’t understand your complaint. The conclusion of the paper says this: “By embryogenesis, the biological bases of two subtypes of ASD social and brain development—profound autism and mild autism—are already present and measurable and involve dysregulated cell proliferation and accelerated neurogenesis and growth.” It is correct to describe that as “established that brain overgrowth begins in the womb”. It seems you have an issue with that the researchers reached this conclusion from experiments with what you call “some odd organoid derived from blood cells”. I’m not an expert so I wouldn’t know if that is a valid way to make the conclusion but once they do it seems the summary in the article is correct. What do you feel is wrong with the article and what do you feel is flaky with the research?
- usgroup 2y ago
  They had a neurotypical control group, their effect size is massive, and clearly separates the autistic group from the control group. They reject the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the groups, and argue from literature for an alternative hypothesis. What's the problem?
  - libeclipse 2y ago
    The sample size is miniscule (14)
frithsun 2y ago
I've been trying to tell everybody for decades that my problem is that my brain is too damn big, but they all laughed at me!
- soist 2y ago
  I know that feel bro.
- brnt 2y ago
  I used to joke to myself that I was the next step in evolution, home sapiens superior. I was aware enough no to provoke my classmates though ;) But, I wonder if it is at all related to Neanderthal lineages. They had bigger brains and were basically autists: the species. Since we are a bastard of them and early Sapiens, maybe some of us present with more of their genome than others?
  - markessien 2y ago
    No, it's not. we know the genes the Neanderthal transferred, and nothing with head size is in there. Also, Africans have autism too.
    - Der_Einzige 2y ago
      Are you sure that rates of autism are evenly distributed?
      - delecti 2y ago
        They don't need to be evenly distributed to be strong evidence against the Neanderthal connection. If autism was basically "latent Neanderthal ancestry", then you'd expect essentially no autism outside of people with European or Middle Eastern ancestry. And it seems that the prevalence of autism is actually fairly even, but might actually be lower among white people. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/addm-community-report/spotlight-on-racial-ethnic-differences.html https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/addm-community-report/spot...
  - 2y ago
trhway 2y ago
the positive correlation between vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy and autism has been known for quite some time. One more aspect of this correlation related to the original post: https://karger.com/neo/article/113/4/305/227927/Vitamin-D-and-Its-Role-in-Neonatal-Hypoxic# https://karger.com/neo/article/113/4/305/227927/Vitamin-D-an... "the vitamin D-deficient infants have a greater brain mass than pups born to vitamin D-sufficient mothers, indicating impairment of appropriate neuronal pruning" "deficiency early in pregnancy is more likely to affect brain structure during the period of organogenesis whereas the pruning of neuronal cells occurs later in gestation, so later deficiency would likely present with differences in brain size. " That also dovetails with that Sweden study that autism is more correlated with vitamin D deficiency in the 3rd trimester.
- badcppdev 2y ago
  Why would you provide a link that doesn't mention autism and not provide a link to 'that Sweden study' ?
  - trhway 2y ago
    because i wrote a short internet comment, not a science article. I just linked to the article most prominently stating the 3rd correlation in the triangle of correlations between those 3 vertices - autism, vitamin D deficiency and brain size. For people who interested it is just a simple google to get more related articles, in particular stating all 3 together though in more diffuse way and/or bridged by the pruning. And simple google also would bring you the Sweden study.
a-dub 2y ago
i'm not a biologist (and so maybe it's table-stakes for modern biological research), but this idea of creating personalized in-vitro synthetic biological models to study disease process in individual living beings seems pretty cool to me!
aussieguy1234 2y ago
Well, that explains my programming abilities then!
s1artibartfast 2y ago
This is what I was thought in school 15 years ago. I suppose this stuff comes in and out of fashion
seydor 2y ago
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- yareal 2y ago
  Kind of a dehumanizing comment, to be honest.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    Autism is a dehumanizing condition
    - yareal 2y ago
      People with autism are human, I assure you.
sturza 2y ago
Paper: https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-024-00602-8 https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...
andai 2y ago
New research? I remember years ago (2019-ish?) a young man in #aspergers asked how he can prune his neurons to cure his aspergers. (The residents however did not appreciate the suggestion that they needed curing.)
- moffkalast 2y ago
  Doctors: Human brains aren't language models, you can't abliterate and prune them! #aspergers guy: Haha scalpel go brrrr
- mrangle 2y ago
  The typical method is short term alcohol abuse. Joking/not joking. The effect is mixed. Pruning may occur. Autism incurable. There are ideologues who like to police others in every divergent group that falls in a normative IQ range. Try going to a deaf sub and happily announcing your pending cochlear implants (don't do this). One might imagine how this may be worse in the autism group. Heck, observe how politically oriented "totally normal" types at Psychology Today pretend to lecture the autism community on the only acceptable way to think of themselves. They're obsessed with the topic, and it'll change only every few years if lucky.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    The fundamental idea at work here is "If I can't be fixed, then I can fix everyone else to be like me, thereby making what I am be considered "fixed"" or "If I can't be fixed, I need to change the definition of working" It's pervasive and annoying.
    - lo_zamoyski 2y ago
      A person ultimately has two options. He can either conform his mind to reality, or reality to his mind. The first leads to truth, the second leads to rationalization, delusion, and insanity. Humility favors the first. Pride favors the second. As Satan famously says in "Paradise Lost", "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." It's not an accident Milton puts those words in the lips of that particular character.
jdthedisciple 2y ago
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- deleted 2y ago
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- ytwySXpMbS 2y ago
  That’s obviously not true, men don’t have 7x more grey matter.
  - jdthedisciple 2y ago
    > In general, men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men. Gray matter represents information processing centers in the brain, and white matter represents the networking of – or connections between – these processing centers. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050121100142.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050121100142.h...
    - ytwySXpMbS 2y ago
      https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210325115316.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210325115316.h... > finds that size is the only clear-cut difference between male and female brains. Women's brains are about 11% smaller than men's, in proportion to their body size. > "This means that the brain differences between large- and small-headed men are as great as the brain differences between the average man and woman," Dr. Eliot said. "And importantly, none of these size-related differences can account for familiar behavioral differences between men and women, such as empathy or spatial skills."
      - jdthedisciple 2y ago
        > This means that the brain differences between large- and small-headed men are as great Well, kind of like a shorter male is still shorter than a taller male yet males are taller than females on average ... which makes it a bit of a 'duh' assessment. Obviously these are distributions. > And importantly, none of these size-related differences can account for familiar behavioral differences between men and women, such as empathy or spatial skills. That's a rather unscientific assertion and certainly false, besides the fact that it doesn't even seem to follow from the study itself. If more gray matter by itself already explains autism, then certainly the gray matter and brain size differences between the sexes must account at least in part for similar cognitive and behavioral differences between the sexes.
TbobbyZ 2y ago
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johnnyAghands 2y ago
Wow so Brett was also autistic.
tracker1 2y ago
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- nemo44x 2y ago
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null_investor 2y ago
I had severe issues as a kid with both my head and brain size (which well, still haunts me today, this big head, hehe), but I never got that autism diagnostic, or actively looked for a doctor for it. A doctor wanted to operate my brain as a baby, but my mother didn't let it, and in the end, it was the right choice as it had a meaningful chance of my death. I also struggled with language at first, and I went to many years of speech therapy, but eventually, it got better. My learning rate with languages is definitely not the best, but I still speak three languages after a good amount of effort and can communicate effectively. It also gave me plenty of advantages; I always scored pretty high on IQ tests and had very good long-term memory. Because I don't buy this narrative from the article or in medical research that there are two kinds of autism. In my opinion, there's only one, and that one has SEVERE conditions; I had a relative who had autism, and it was complicated for both the person and their parents. To me, this seems like a naming issue like software engineers do, who struggle to name an abstraction correctly, and after three years, that abstraction means everything. Having a different kind of brain wiring isn't some sort of sickness or anomaly. All brains are very different, just like your toes. When you compare them to others, you'll see quite a few differences.
- sfpotter 2y ago
  I think this is a really good way to put it. It feels like there's a rush to label and self-diagnose which ultimately results in a ton of pathologization of relatively normal behaviors. That is: "normal" as in we expect to see some diversity of behavior. Maybe less labeling would lead to more acceptance and understanding, which seems after all to be one of the goals...
  - bunderbunder 2y ago
    Judging by how things go at my kids' school, it's quite the opposite. I and several of my friends have neurodivergent kids. The kids are quite open about it at school, and generally don't pathologize it at all. It's a huge difference from the traumatic childhood I experienced, where I was undiagnosed and also openly bullied for being a little bit weird. If I may get a bit direct, if you believe that the move toward classifying some things as spectrum disorders, and neurodiversity in general, is about pathologizing the range of human behavior, I'd encourage you to spend some more time looking into it.
throw4847285 2y ago
I am instantly skeptical of any article that boils down to, "here is one study that may point in one direction but is far from the final world on the matter." The comments are filled with anecdata that reeks of confirmation bias. In other news, I have a big head and as a kid my older sister would bully me and call me "King Tut." She would also mock me by pointing out my long eyelashes and say, "You know, in ancient Egypt, long eyelashes were a sign of beauty in men." She was 10 or 11? Anyway, we're close now. I just wanted to share what bullying is like in an extremely dorky family.
- aklemm 2y ago
  She sounds like a hoot!
  - throw4847285 2y ago
    We also used to play Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit with my other siblings. We couldn't let my sister go first because once it was her turn she answered every single question correct, continuing her turn until she won without us even getting to answer a single question. It was a mix of movie and book trivia, but even if it had been all deep cut Silmarillion stuff it would have played out the same way. I can now never forget about the Uruk-hai Lurtz, invented for the first movie.
zeroonetwothree 2y ago
Autism is a sensory processing disorder in which symptoms are triggered by your brain receiving too much stimulus. That’s why autistic people like to do repetitive behaviors (it’s easy to predict the outcome), don’t like change, and so on. It’s why autistic people tend to be highly sensitive to certain senses (loud noises, bright lights, touch). And it’s why they struggle in social situations-there is too much complexity to process it and decide what to do. The research about too large brain size and too many connections seems consistent with this, being a physical explanation for these effects.
- r_singh 2y ago
  Can you please share how you know this information and if you know more on the topic or could point to a good source to learn more? Thanks
localfirst 2y ago
makes sense why cutting back on carbs is relevant

250 points by jdmark 2y ago

That damn food pyramid

So is it in some sense similar to having a brain tumour? Some part of the brain is growing too much and depriving others of space?

Rhapso 2y ago
I'm biased to the evolutionary argument that neurodiversity is a survival trait in social animals. This theory, especially if the outcome is effectively random bias in cognitive development, would fit that.
- Rinzler89 2y ago
  >I'm biased to the evolutionary argument that neurodiversity is a survival trait in social animals. Can you please explain what you mean by this?
  - Rhapso 2y ago
    https://society5.com/leadership/neurodiversity-evolution/ https://society5.com/leadership/neurodiversity-evolution/ seems a decent summary
    - Rinzler89 2y ago
      But to me that reads like different statement than yours of neurodiversity being a survival trait, to which I have to disagree. Being a neurodiverse, or more commonly known "on the spectrum", is a guaranteed way to get bullied (or worse) by your peers who are not. How is that supposed to help with survival? Some neurodiverse kids and even adults get bullied so hard they commit self termination (to avoid using the 's' word). That's exactly the opposite of helping with survival. Helping with survival to me means having features that help you get accepted by the heard and with finding a mate to reproduce, not features that get you shunned and outcasted till you end up wirtten off the gene pool.
      - hcfman 2y ago
        That’s a bit simplistic. They might also invent a personal computer the income from which very much helps them survive.
        Rinzler89 2y ago
        You don't need to invent something that makes you a billionaire to survive. Plenty of dumbass people out there survive just fine. Survival to me means having a happy life with friends and family and passing your genes on, not being a quirky, lonely tech billionaire.
        Rhapso 2y ago
        The root misunderstanding is the "social species" part of my statement. Neurodiversity benefits the species, so it will be selected for as a survival trait for the species, even if it is recessive or those who express it never reproduce. Those "genetically adjacent" benefit and keep the traits alive If you think survival traits mean being healthy and happy, ask Darwin why the evolution of caterpillars killed his faith in god.
      - Rhapso 2y ago
        Like all variation in traits, going beyond 2 standard deviations tends to not be beneficial. We don't get to have variation without also having the potential for too much of it. Welcome to the messy stochastic search algorithm that is online approximator for Causal Entropic Force.
      - sleepydog 2y ago
        I see it more as a survival trait for a population, not an individual. An individual does not need to procreate for a population to benefit from any trait they may have. In that sense, the trait may be a disadvantage for the individual, but increase the well-being of the population at large. An unimaginative example would be an autistic individual whose condition enables them to make a life-saving scientific or mathematical breakthrough, but due to the same condition ultimately dies alone and childless.
      - 2y ago
- natpalmer1776 2y ago
  Neurodiversity as an evolutionary survival trait is such a beautiful concept I haven't heard before, but it makes so much sense! I think the concept pairs really well with the idea of social selection as a derivative of natural selection in which social structures create natural divisions in a population's gene expression to disfavor traits that don't benefit the population even if they benefit the individual.
  - coldtea 2y ago
    Here's some stuff on that: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/adhd-traits-might-have-helped-hunter-gatherers-collect-more-food-while-foraging-study-suggests-180983824/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/adhd-traits-might-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_versus_farmer_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_versus_farmer_hypothesi... https://theconversation.com/how-our-autistic-ancestors-played-an-important-role-in-human-evolution-73477 https://theconversation.com/how-our-autistic-ancestors-playe... https://hms.harvard.edu/news/autism-evolution https://hms.harvard.edu/news/autism-evolution https://www.wired.com/story/autism-ancestors-evolution/ https://www.wired.com/story/autism-ancestors-evolution/
- emptysongglass 2y ago
  We don't need to turn all pathologies into a positive trait to be cherished. We see this all too often today with e.g. ADHD (from which I suffer). They are not our superhero abilities and they often come with extremely debilitating consequences. I know many people on the spectrum and they suffer.
  - Rhapso 2y ago
    Oh agreed, but all "positive attributes" are problems at extremes. I think this is similar. Literally everything we pathologize around mental health (that isn't a direct deficit) is "normal at lower intensities"
  - twojacobtwo 2y ago
    I also suffer from ADD (non-H type). While I definitely acknowledge the validity of your point, having a view of the other side of the coin often helps to cope with these things. Not just cope, but moreso to keep in mind where we might best apply our efforts to have the greatest effect in our favor. It certainly helped me to have things reframed in such ways. I think it's more a matter of degrees than a wholesale one view vs the other.
    - _yb2s 2y ago
      ADD has been renamed inattentive-type ADHD
      - twojacobtwo 2y ago
        I didn't know that. Thank you. I'll probably stick with ADD for most things though, because it seems like it's easier to say (barring my own qualifier for clarity) and people generally understand the distinction already. But this will be helpful in more technical circumstances, I imagine.
        _yb2s 2y ago
        Nowadays the term ADD isn't even used casually by doctors or other people with ADHD... if someone told me they had ADD I would assume they were either self diagnosed, or diagnosed a long time ago and self treating, but not communicating with doctors or the ADHD community for at least a decade. The latter is important because there have been HUGE advances in practical advice on managing ADHD. Look at podcasts like "Hacking ADHD" and "How To ADHD."
kylebenzle 2y ago
They are not similar at all really. Autism is correlated to, "accelerated formation of neurons"(1) and "an increase in the number of neural connections"(2). That partially explains some savant-like traits being connected to autism. Outside of that John Travolta movie where he got the brain tumor and got super smart I don't think people are evolving tumors to increase intelligence. [1] Article [2] https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/in-autism-too-many-brain-connections-may-be-at-root-of-condition/ https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/in-autism-too-many-brain-con...
sharpshadow 2y ago
I would say no. A tumour is locally and doesn’t cover the whole brain as they found out that autism is linked to overall more brain organelles.
robwwilliams 2y ago
No. We are far from a “common cause” answer to autism or many other neurodevelopmental and psychiatric conditions.

pieter_mj 2y ago

Overgrowth is a normal process in the development of the fetal brain. It is followed by a reorganization, which means the pruning and migration of neurons to the right locations in the brain.

hcfman 2y ago

It’s a shame that some media still call this a disease where it is clearly not a disadvantage in some contexts for some instances. Where’s as the words disease doesn’t conjure up any impressions of upside.

r_singh 2y ago
What’s more is that people aren’t sensitive to it. Unsaid social rules really make the lives of some of the differently abled who have an eye for things the rest of us don’t difficult. Heart goes out for all those on the spectrum dealing with family and social issues
- chrisknyfe 2y ago
  that's because unsaid social rules are part of the structures that keep rich elites on top, and help them filter out "pretenders" to nobility.
  - DiscourseFan 2y ago
    Yes and no, as in any case to challenge power you'd need a rigorous understanding of it, which you can't get if you're severely autistic. The greatest works of humanity have been made with social co-operation.
    - masfuerte 2y ago
      And the greatest atrocities of humanity have been made with social co-operation.
      - DiscourseFan 2y ago
        That's trivial. Atrocity goes hand in hand with power, the same power that decimates a whole people also builds the city over their graves. The powerless cannot challenge power, there is nothing honourable in ineptitude. If you want to feel good about yourself for being weak you can go back to church and pray that a god will save you, but for those who wish to triumph in the world there is only one path available, and it is not bloodless.

sharpshadow 2y ago

This is a phenomenal discovery and treatment could consist of both increasing the space for the brain or decreasing the mass of the brain. Would be super cool if there could be found a way to enlarge the skull size during growth to have enough space for that special autism brains.

orlp 2y ago
> and treatment could consist of both increasing the space for the brain or decreasing the mass of the brain I'll pass, thanks.
lmz 2y ago
Or early abortion if it's detectable in utero.
- yareal 2y ago
  The term for this is "eugenics", and it's generally considered a negative.
  - lofenfew 2y ago
    If its not genetic, which autism isn't, then it has nothing to do with eugenics. People have the right to choose how they raise children, trying to dictate that is much more similar to eugenics imo
    - yareal 2y ago
      Autism is considered primarily genetic and it's inheritable. What we don't yet understand is the complex set of genetic interactions that result in ASD. Here's one study: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215632120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215632120 but there are dozens if not hundreds more like this. Your claim that ASD is not genetic is extraordinary and counter to the prevailing scientific understanding, and requires significant evidence to back up.
  - lmz 2y ago

zachmu 2y ago

This reminds me of a twitter thread I read a few years ago making this prediction: https://www.tinygnomes.com/qwiki.cgi?mode=previewSynd&uuid=BCXKLB9VJN4XU8EU4VQ2PSX6K4QT https://www.tinygnomes.com/qwiki.cgi?mode=previewSynd&uuid=B... We had already known from autopsies that neural density in certain brain regions is much higher among autists.

willsmith72 2y ago
> There are 1st grade girls in 2021 that have asses that didn’t used to show up until 16 This is certainly... something
- watersb 2y ago
  It's either horrid or a broken machine translation to English.
  - tluyben2 2y ago
    Not related (at least as far as I can see), but I read a lot of startup materials translated from Portugal Portuguese to English and often was quite confused about what it said, indeed sentences like the gp here. Then I learned Portugal Portuguese proper and found out its sayings and humor that doesn't translate. Mostly because it's not funny (to me, which makes it hard to translate) but also because there is nothing useful to translate it to in English (sometimes there is in Scottish and Irish but often not in England or US english).
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Paul-Craft 2y ago
    I don't think it's machine translation. The preceding sentence is this: > The best illustration of “spillover” is the incredible increase in the size of the ass and thighs in girls. This is not due to squatting or implants, because you see it at very young ages.
  - 2y ago

derbOac 2y ago

This growth pattern has been documented pretty well? I used to teach it in undergrad courses. Autism spectrum issues are associated with overgrowth and then deceleration more than normal. This seems like a hyperexperimental version of it. Still interesting and good to see corroborating evidence, also useful as a model for therapies and other things.

SubiculumCode 2y ago
Th predominant view in the field has been that there is early cerebral overgrowth followed by either normalization or regression of brain volume in adolescence. However, this conclusion is based on cross-sectional comparisons. This means, they look at different people at different ages, and make inferences on developmental trajectories based on these cross-sectional, age-related patterns. While this is often a starting point, cross-sectional research can suffer from sampling biases. A huge weakness in autism neuroimaging research is the un-representativeness of their samples. Nearly a third of individuals with autism have severe intellectual impairments (IQ's < 70) yet represent less than 1% of neuroimaging samples. Individuals with other immense behavioral, sensory and language challenges are also rarely make it through the rigors of imaging protocols. A rare exception has been imaging research that performed brain imaging in very young children during natural sleep. and thus can hold still enough for quality MRI images to be acquired. This has allowed imaging of autistic children aged 2-6 years to include autism over a whole range of severities, challenges, and intellectual abilities. This presents a problem though. The research that suggested there is brain overgrowth in early childhood sampled from a wide range of autism phenotypes and severities, while the normalization evidence in adolescents and adults came from autistic participants with normal ranged IQs and less severe challenges, a clear cross-sectional sampling bias that threatens the validity of the overgrowth normalization story. Moreover, research indicated that disproportionate brain size in autism was associated with slower intellectual improvements with development. I and my colleagues thus hypothesized that the discrepancy would be removed if we can follow the same children from childhood into adolescence longitudinally. Using a number of behavioral techniques and a lots of care and dedication, our team managed to acquire brain data in a broad spectrum of autism phenotypes and severity levels from early childhood into early adolescence. We reported the results of our study in Biological Psychiatry Lee in 2021. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8089123/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8089123/ (open access). Our conclusion: Longitudinal evidence does not support the notion that early brain overgrowth is followed by volumetric regression, at least from early to late childhood.

danlugo92 2y ago

Autism is a mental illness not a physical illness.

squigz 2y ago
What is the difference, really? Our minds exist in a physical state, and our moods/thoughts/reactions/etc are just configurations of physical states.
- threecheese 2y ago
  And further, these configurations are driven by chemical exchanges that are entirely biological in nature, regulated by other configurations, and all driven by a combination of gene expression, experiences, and the physical environment.
llamaLord 2y ago
Ummm sorry what? It's been demonstrated more times than I can count that Autism has a physiological basis, not a psychological one.
- danlugo92 2y ago
  So the people that get better have their brains size reduced?
_yb2s 2y ago
It's not an illness at all- it's a neurodevelopmental disorder. Although not well understood, it involves physically measurable differences in brain development during childhood like the one this post is about, and cannot be treated with things like psychotherapy.
- faeriechangling 2y ago
  It correlates to physically measurable brain differences, autism is considered heterogenous for a reason and has no single cause. Given autistics don’t even seem to have the same symptoms, severity of symptoms, or etiologies, and opinions on what treatment even constitutes, I also hesitate to make any strong statements about what may or may not be effective medical treatment for them. There’s a reason Americans research on autism has to use RDOC domains which at least gives some insight into specific symptoms and their severity so hopefully this heterogeneity problem which results in really bad treatment options and guidance for autistic patients will get better.

tenacious_tuna 2y ago

For those who's instinctive approach to autism (or other flavors of significant neruodivergence) is to treat it as something that has inherent tradeoffs, or as something that "obviously" people would want to manage or choose to not have when given the option: I highly recommend this article [1] and the book written by the same author, to recontextualize autism (in specific) and neurodiversity (in general) not as things to be managed but as forms of diversity in the human expression to be wholly welcomed in wider society. Put differently: Autism is not something to be managed away. > I don't think anyone who was somehow given the choice of autism or no autism at birth would choose autism would they? I test in the statistically-likely range for autism on multiple diagnostic tests, though I don't carry a diagnosis from a psychiatric professional, so grain of salt, etc; but I find this kind of hypothetical offensive and degrading. It rings so much of how we approached queer identities throughout the years: blindly assuming that because wider society has difficulty interacting with autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people that THOSE PEOPLE would prefer to be like those more neurotypical members. I like my brain. I don't want it to change. I don't want to be different. I don't want to be treated as someone suffering some condition, or like there's "tradeoffs" in my experience of the world that're any more significant or worthy of commentary than anyone else's experience of the world. [1]: https://neuroqueer.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools/ https://neuroqueer.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools/

deleted 2y ago
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llamaLord 2y ago
Just be careful with this line of reasoning though please. It's already hard enough for people outside of the USA to access treatment for things like ADHD when they want to, it doesn't help to have a bunch of people walking around saying "it's not actually a disadvantage at all... It's REALLY more of a gift". Without my ADHD meds, I have ZERO ability to actually leverage the "gift" part...
- outside415 2y ago
  those ADHD meds are exceptionally addictive and long term damaging to your body/heart/mind. be careful.

giantg2 2y ago

[flagged]

petercooper 2y ago

Also macrocephaly is significantly more common in autistic people than the general population (that is, macrocephaly is a head circumference at the 97th percentile or higher, but ~20% of autistic people have it).

SteveNew 2y ago

This essentially can become a blood test for autism, or at least to identify babies at risk of autism, right?

shermantanktop 2y ago
Sounds like we might be back to measuring heads with calipers, just like in the old days.
- Muromec 2y ago
  Do we throw the ones with heads too small or too big off the cliff? Once we coup the government through AI-hype I mean Edit: sorry, wrong chat
  - b112 2y ago
    Then after we "fix" autism, all human progress ceases, and society slowly falls apart. It's not 'normals' that shake and bake society. It aberratics that do.

tezza 2y ago

This is the best I could find of the actual paper This research has a very small sample size (n=31) Also indicated by the scatter plots too. From the research: “total of 10 toddlers with ASD and 6 controls ... In a 2021 batch, we measured BCOs from 10 ASD and 5 controls.“ https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380876463_Embryonic_origin_of_two_ASD_subtypes_of_social_symptom_severity_the_larger_the_brain_cortical_organoid_size_the_more_severe_the_social_symptoms https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380876463_Embryonic...

SubiculumCode 2y ago
lol The sample size in induced pluripotent stem cell research is often like this because of how laborious it is, and cutting edge. Moroever, while the parent sample is small, it doesn't mean that number of samples per individual is small. I haven't read the paper yet, but if its like what our team is doing, we take blood, and turn the cells there into neurons, then organoids.
- tezza 2y ago
  I can see that the research makes many organoid samples (4000+) mentioned in the paper. This is good to validate the organoid results are consistent. however, then correlating the consistent organoid attributes back to attributes of a small parent sample group is weaker on small sample groups than larger ones. here the parent group is tiny… and the severe ASD sufferers is even smaller (n=2 or 3 by my understanding) great foundational research! but surely larger group sizes are required before correlation is confirmed
  - SubiculumCode 2y ago
    Absolutely!

robwwilliams 2y ago

These summary is just wrong wrt this study: >”Now that Courchesne and Muotri have established that brain overgrowth begins in the womb, they hope to pinpoint its cause, in a bid to develop a therapy that might ease intellectual and social functioning for those with the condition.” There is a slight difference between “beginning in the womb” snd beginning in some odd organoid derived from blood cells. Autism research imho tends to be flaky and this type of press release does not help.

koolala 2y ago
flakey + overfunded = published success
krisoft 2y ago
I don’t understand your complaint. The conclusion of the paper says this: “By embryogenesis, the biological bases of two subtypes of ASD social and brain development—profound autism and mild autism—are already present and measurable and involve dysregulated cell proliferation and accelerated neurogenesis and growth.” It is correct to describe that as “established that brain overgrowth begins in the womb”. It seems you have an issue with that the researchers reached this conclusion from experiments with what you call “some odd organoid derived from blood cells”. I’m not an expert so I wouldn’t know if that is a valid way to make the conclusion but once they do it seems the summary in the article is correct. What do you feel is wrong with the article and what do you feel is flaky with the research?
usgroup 2y ago
They had a neurotypical control group, their effect size is massive, and clearly separates the autistic group from the control group. They reject the null hypothesis that there is no difference between the groups, and argue from literature for an alternative hypothesis. What's the problem?
- libeclipse 2y ago
  The sample size is miniscule (14)

frithsun 2y ago

I've been trying to tell everybody for decades that my problem is that my brain is too damn big, but they all laughed at me!

soist 2y ago
I know that feel bro.
brnt 2y ago
I used to joke to myself that I was the next step in evolution, home sapiens superior. I was aware enough no to provoke my classmates though ;) But, I wonder if it is at all related to Neanderthal lineages. They had bigger brains and were basically autists: the species. Since we are a bastard of them and early Sapiens, maybe some of us present with more of their genome than others?
- markessien 2y ago
  No, it's not. we know the genes the Neanderthal transferred, and nothing with head size is in there. Also, Africans have autism too.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    Are you sure that rates of autism are evenly distributed?
    - delecti 2y ago
      They don't need to be evenly distributed to be strong evidence against the Neanderthal connection. If autism was basically "latent Neanderthal ancestry", then you'd expect essentially no autism outside of people with European or Middle Eastern ancestry. And it seems that the prevalence of autism is actually fairly even, but might actually be lower among white people. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/addm-community-report/spotlight-on-racial-ethnic-differences.html https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/addm-community-report/spot...
- 2y ago

trhway 2y ago

the positive correlation between vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy and autism has been known for quite some time. One more aspect of this correlation related to the original post: https://karger.com/neo/article/113/4/305/227927/Vitamin-D-and-Its-Role-in-Neonatal-Hypoxic# https://karger.com/neo/article/113/4/305/227927/Vitamin-D-an... "the vitamin D-deficient infants have a greater brain mass than pups born to vitamin D-sufficient mothers, indicating impairment of appropriate neuronal pruning" "deficiency early in pregnancy is more likely to affect brain structure during the period of organogenesis whereas the pruning of neuronal cells occurs later in gestation, so later deficiency would likely present with differences in brain size. " That also dovetails with that Sweden study that autism is more correlated with vitamin D deficiency in the 3rd trimester.

badcppdev 2y ago
Why would you provide a link that doesn't mention autism and not provide a link to 'that Sweden study' ?
- trhway 2y ago
  because i wrote a short internet comment, not a science article. I just linked to the article most prominently stating the 3rd correlation in the triangle of correlations between those 3 vertices - autism, vitamin D deficiency and brain size. For people who interested it is just a simple google to get more related articles, in particular stating all 3 together though in more diffuse way and/or bridged by the pruning. And simple google also would bring you the Sweden study.

a-dub 2y ago

i'm not a biologist (and so maybe it's table-stakes for modern biological research), but this idea of creating personalized in-vitro synthetic biological models to study disease process in individual living beings seems pretty cool to me!

aussieguy1234 2y ago

Well, that explains my programming abilities then!

s1artibartfast 2y ago

This is what I was thought in school 15 years ago. I suppose this stuff comes in and out of fashion

seydor 2y ago

[flagged]

yareal 2y ago
Kind of a dehumanizing comment, to be honest.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  Autism is a dehumanizing condition
  - yareal 2y ago
    People with autism are human, I assure you.

sturza 2y ago

Paper: https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-024-00602-8 https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s...

andai 2y ago

New research? I remember years ago (2019-ish?) a young man in #aspergers asked how he can prune his neurons to cure his aspergers. (The residents however did not appreciate the suggestion that they needed curing.)

moffkalast 2y ago
Doctors: Human brains aren't language models, you can't abliterate and prune them! #aspergers guy: Haha scalpel go brrrr
mrangle 2y ago
The typical method is short term alcohol abuse. Joking/not joking. The effect is mixed. Pruning may occur. Autism incurable. There are ideologues who like to police others in every divergent group that falls in a normative IQ range. Try going to a deaf sub and happily announcing your pending cochlear implants (don't do this). One might imagine how this may be worse in the autism group. Heck, observe how politically oriented "totally normal" types at Psychology Today pretend to lecture the autism community on the only acceptable way to think of themselves. They're obsessed with the topic, and it'll change only every few years if lucky.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  The fundamental idea at work here is "If I can't be fixed, then I can fix everyone else to be like me, thereby making what I am be considered "fixed"" or "If I can't be fixed, I need to change the definition of working" It's pervasive and annoying.
  - lo_zamoyski 2y ago
    A person ultimately has two options. He can either conform his mind to reality, or reality to his mind. The first leads to truth, the second leads to rationalization, delusion, and insanity. Humility favors the first. Pride favors the second. As Satan famously says in "Paradise Lost", "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." It's not an accident Milton puts those words in the lips of that particular character.

jdthedisciple 2y ago

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deleted 2y ago
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ytwySXpMbS 2y ago
That’s obviously not true, men don’t have 7x more grey matter.
- jdthedisciple 2y ago
  > In general, men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men. Gray matter represents information processing centers in the brain, and white matter represents the networking of – or connections between – these processing centers. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050121100142.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050121100142.h...
  - ytwySXpMbS 2y ago
    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210325115316.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210325115316.h... > finds that size is the only clear-cut difference between male and female brains. Women's brains are about 11% smaller than men's, in proportion to their body size. > "This means that the brain differences between large- and small-headed men are as great as the brain differences between the average man and woman," Dr. Eliot said. "And importantly, none of these size-related differences can account for familiar behavioral differences between men and women, such as empathy or spatial skills."
    - jdthedisciple 2y ago
      > This means that the brain differences between large- and small-headed men are as great Well, kind of like a shorter male is still shorter than a taller male yet males are taller than females on average ... which makes it a bit of a 'duh' assessment. Obviously these are distributions. > And importantly, none of these size-related differences can account for familiar behavioral differences between men and women, such as empathy or spatial skills. That's a rather unscientific assertion and certainly false, besides the fact that it doesn't even seem to follow from the study itself. If more gray matter by itself already explains autism, then certainly the gray matter and brain size differences between the sexes must account at least in part for similar cognitive and behavioral differences between the sexes.

TbobbyZ 2y ago

[flagged]

johnnyAghands 2y ago

Wow so Brett was also autistic.

tracker1 2y ago

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nemo44x 2y ago
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null_investor 2y ago

I had severe issues as a kid with both my head and brain size (which well, still haunts me today, this big head, hehe), but I never got that autism diagnostic, or actively looked for a doctor for it. A doctor wanted to operate my brain as a baby, but my mother didn't let it, and in the end, it was the right choice as it had a meaningful chance of my death. I also struggled with language at first, and I went to many years of speech therapy, but eventually, it got better. My learning rate with languages is definitely not the best, but I still speak three languages after a good amount of effort and can communicate effectively. It also gave me plenty of advantages; I always scored pretty high on IQ tests and had very good long-term memory. Because I don't buy this narrative from the article or in medical research that there are two kinds of autism. In my opinion, there's only one, and that one has SEVERE conditions; I had a relative who had autism, and it was complicated for both the person and their parents. To me, this seems like a naming issue like software engineers do, who struggle to name an abstraction correctly, and after three years, that abstraction means everything. Having a different kind of brain wiring isn't some sort of sickness or anomaly. All brains are very different, just like your toes. When you compare them to others, you'll see quite a few differences.

sfpotter 2y ago
I think this is a really good way to put it. It feels like there's a rush to label and self-diagnose which ultimately results in a ton of pathologization of relatively normal behaviors. That is: "normal" as in we expect to see some diversity of behavior. Maybe less labeling would lead to more acceptance and understanding, which seems after all to be one of the goals...
- bunderbunder 2y ago
  Judging by how things go at my kids' school, it's quite the opposite. I and several of my friends have neurodivergent kids. The kids are quite open about it at school, and generally don't pathologize it at all. It's a huge difference from the traumatic childhood I experienced, where I was undiagnosed and also openly bullied for being a little bit weird. If I may get a bit direct, if you believe that the move toward classifying some things as spectrum disorders, and neurodiversity in general, is about pathologizing the range of human behavior, I'd encourage you to spend some more time looking into it.

throw4847285 2y ago

I am instantly skeptical of any article that boils down to, "here is one study that may point in one direction but is far from the final world on the matter." The comments are filled with anecdata that reeks of confirmation bias. In other news, I have a big head and as a kid my older sister would bully me and call me "King Tut." She would also mock me by pointing out my long eyelashes and say, "You know, in ancient Egypt, long eyelashes were a sign of beauty in men." She was 10 or 11? Anyway, we're close now. I just wanted to share what bullying is like in an extremely dorky family.

aklemm 2y ago
She sounds like a hoot!
- throw4847285 2y ago
  We also used to play Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit with my other siblings. We couldn't let my sister go first because once it was her turn she answered every single question correct, continuing her turn until she won without us even getting to answer a single question. It was a mix of movie and book trivia, but even if it had been all deep cut Silmarillion stuff it would have played out the same way. I can now never forget about the Uruk-hai Lurtz, invented for the first movie.

zeroonetwothree 2y ago

Autism is a sensory processing disorder in which symptoms are triggered by your brain receiving too much stimulus. That’s why autistic people like to do repetitive behaviors (it’s easy to predict the outcome), don’t like change, and so on. It’s why autistic people tend to be highly sensitive to certain senses (loud noises, bright lights, touch). And it’s why they struggle in social situations-there is too much complexity to process it and decide what to do. The research about too large brain size and too many connections seems consistent with this, being a physical explanation for these effects.

r_singh 2y ago
Can you please share how you know this information and if you know more on the topic or could point to a good source to learn more? Thanks

localfirst 2y ago

makes sense why cutting back on carbs is relevant