Has anything at all been scientifically proven about AS?

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So basically, what you all are saying is that all autistic people have thicker head lines on their hand, and the cause is that you had to have been born when Saggitarius approaches Mars during a new moon, and we are all related to vampires and Santa Claus, but the Easter Bunny isn't real. Got it.

No, he's real, he just doesn't lay eggs.

^ The fish in your icon is ultimate win.

This seems backwards to me. They are using people who have been diagnosed with autism as a basis for the findings. It should be the other way around.

They should more correctly say "children with autistic symptoms" or something of the like. If there are physical differences in the brain for autistic people, then the people without those differences should not be able to be considered autistic but perhaps have a different physical cause that produces similar symptoms and therefore a different syndrome all together.

I do not like the idea of taking people "with autism" as a fact and basing the percentages around that.

Tantybi wrote

Is there a reason for this snide comment, or is it entirely gratuitous?

mitharatowen wrote

mitharatowen,

Much of the research compares NT neurology (brains) or genes with those of autists, in an attempt to discover the neurological or genetic basis of autism. So, in fact, they look at both autistics and NTs. There is perhaps no other way of discovering this.

When, and if, such a common neurological or genetic basis is discovered, a physical/biological test could PERHAPS determine accurately who is and is not autistic.

Then you also can't talk about people "with cancer", people "with schizophrenia", people "with cerebral palsy", people "with depression", people "with high blood pressure"; for that matter, "people with white skin" and "short people", etc....

Okay, here's the thing: Most diagnosable conditions (and most genetic traits) have multiple ways of coming into being. There are SO many ways a person can get cancer that the only reason we call it one thing is that all these causes produce much the same effect--cells dividing without a "stop" signal. There are dozens of genes that play into high blood pressure, dozens of ways you can get cancer, dozens of reasons you might have schizophrenia. And that's just the genetics. I'm not even getting into environment. (In some of these cases, maybe "hundreds" would be more correct than "dozens.")

Autism is no different. There are many, many different ways you can genetically come up with an autistic person. If there weren't, we would've found the "autism gene" by now. There are many ways those genes can affect the body. Like many other diagnoses, autism is probably a single syndrome that can be caused any number of different ways, and have a huge variance in its expression. Think about schizophrenia for a minute: This is about as common as autism, and varies about as widely. Many doctors are thinking about calling it "the schizophrenias", because there are so many ways it can express itself, and so many outcomes it can have. We know that autism is a widely divergent group of people with a rough group of similar traits; why would it be surprising that some of us have some brain differences, and others have other brain differences, and that there are multiple genetic markers that can be found in some but not all autistic people? I'm gonna bet that the same overlap and divergence we see in our behavioral phenotypes can be found in the physical phenotypes and in our genes.

This isn't some simple Mendelian thing. Autism's complex. We don't know nearly enough about it; and thank goodness, because if we knew more, people might be aborting our autistic "siblings" as we speak.

^ An interesting point, thank you.

Let me express once again, Callista, how much I appreciate the very lucid way you have of expressing your information/positions.

Your points regarding the complexity of autism are well-taken, and the neurological variation among autists is indeed remarkable. It is apparent that the genetic factors involved are particularly complex.

I would add a couple of points. When I was a kid the mere idea of a personal computer didn't exist, and now look where we are with computer technology. The study of the brain is about at the stage computation was 40 years ago, so, by extrapolation, I expect astonishing progress in this field in the coming years/decades. I am sure that we will understand autism at some point, complex though it may be.

Also, despite all the variation, there must be some neurological factor(s) common to all autists, even if there are multiple genetic/environmental causes. Otherwise, all autists wouldn't have the same condition (which might turn out to be true, although I doubt it).

Why? Cause I compared the medical field to astrology, palm reading, and mythical figures? Hundreds of years ago (with the exception of the Santa Claus possibly), all those things were pretty scientific. In fact, Astrology is probably the most scientific of them all, but it got debunked by empirical evidence which is just as factual as astrology itself.

Anyway, all the posts on this topic has confirmed what I thought all along. Nobody really knows anything about autism.

While we are on it... they don't know much about cancer, schizophrenia, or short people for that matter either. Maybe they will some day, but I'm thinking if we got satellites, visited the moon, invented cell phones, computers, and internet, and can turn A cups into D cups, yet we can't find a way to cure a viral condition let alone explain much of medical nature of things, then maybe it's just possible we'll never know these secrets. They go up there with who made us and why and how do the dinosaurs fit into the picture. At this point, it might as well be a myth or a line on my hand for that matter.

Also, maybe some of the studies are having a hard time finding anything when diagnostic criteria is symptom/opinion based. Looking at the way the world works, we can find out and name a virus that causes a disease, and maybe that's only because it causes a disease. If we can't find out what causes autism, maybe it's because it's not a disease. Has it ever dawned on science that there just might not be anything wrong with autistic people? I'm sure i could produce empirical evidence to suggest just that easier than I could to suggest otherwise.

For the record I believe it's a difference also.

T. Grandin referenced some(if not most) of these findings... e.g. architecture of the cortical layout and the 'mini column' paradigm,etc.
To me at face value , if the science was statistically accurate ,the article proved that the controls and matched autism subjects processed things in a noteworthy different manner due to anatomical differences via imaging .
Otherwise it would have been a baseless hodgepodge of info. and pseudoscience.

True it doesn't use "aspergers", but "high functioning '; "low functioning" and asd are used throughout, and the controls are i.q. matched ; just speculation, but if aspergers was excluded wouldn't this limit the i.q. @ 70 and less than<?

Not presentation, but the observation of same, by people who have no inside information at all.

As we both have stated, thirty years ago we both were considered normal workers, and recently, since the rise of social trends, and will psychobabble for food, we are now counted among the damned by talk show hosts, university students, and human resources.

If autism exists, it is by far not in the top ten of strange mental states found among humans.

So we have a few apes that want funding to chainsaw up DNA, slice and dice, promissing wonder cures through Genetics. They have a Degree in it!

My Super Power Science will learn everything! Not likely.

Comparing it to a computer, it only took humans a few million years to build a computer, and they still crash, would you want Vista Neurology?

The human mind will figure out the human mind? The human mind cannot remember what it had for breakfast!

Why, only Al Gore could untwist the coiled serpents of DNA, and rebuild them in his own image, but he is busy with the thermostat, which he claims is not working.

What we know about DNA, it is the pattern maker, and there are six billion outcomes, no two alike.

Before wondering about mental states, genetics will cause millions of middle aged men to die of a heart attack this year. Genetic, it runs in families. Where is Heart Attack Speaks?

Almost all forms of death are genetic, It is not even the whole code, just a shortening at the ends caused by replication, that could possibly be prevented. Where is Death Speaks?

Autism? What about those people who always send a Birthday Card to everyone they even slightly know, and it is always on time? They make everyone else feel guilty, they do not even remember their name, invaded, stalked, like getting a very personal note from the IRS.

The Psychology and Neurology Bubble is following the steps of Credit Default Swaps, an exchange of worthless promisses, that genetrates income based on lies. When called upon to honor their promisses, the house of cards falls.

The whole idea of knowing the brain or mind is a lie, and the last thirty years has turned out an industry of liers. Quoting Asperger, Kanner, Wing, avoiding the reality of Grandin, they claim to want to help, caused by watching Care Bears, as they make people poorer, and undermine a form of life that has been going on for thousands of years before they came along. They are the problem.

The entire economy of the United States is missing, and none of the brightest and best have any idea where to find it, but they want to use Science on DNA? Psycobabble funded by Universal Health Care?

All study is for one purpose, to exterminate the damned. There is no DNA repair, only identify and eradicate. Where Medicine has the twined serpents on a staff, they should have a human skull over crossed thigh bones.

I can agree with a lot of your statement Inventor but I see you a litle pessimistic. Actually knowing if there are genes (and wich one) involving in particular autistic trait if not an help would be an interesting things to know. I'm sure that humanity will use it for the wrong, but, as a physic scientist I'll not stop our knowledge about atomic energy because presidents can cast atomic bombs and here is the same problem, knowledge is always good, you can say that they can spend the money for better purpose and I agree but the main problem will be how they will use the knowledge not the knowledge itself.

...
Sounds like my hippocampus is f***ed then. D:

Wait, what scale of spacial orientation? Like, tiny stuff? (text) Room sized? City sized? All?

Our feable progress since the lucky guess of Watson and Crick has been useful. I do support the work of the Human Genome Project, which gives something more than guesswork to the past. Mapping the genome of the fruit fly will advance study, a useful tool of science.

My complaint is with the claimed application, and the grant application, for using Nanobots to rebuild DNA in the womb to correct all of the faults of nature before birth. This would not even make good Science Fiction.

A study of brain morphology has all of the science of Phrenology, skull shape showing future behavior.

The study of autistic brain development is a lie. For one, until there is a study of all brains, and all lives they lived, there is no base line to compare. A second reason is, who says these brains are autistic? There is a lack of current agreement, and who knows what passed for truth in the past when these brains were Dxed. Human traits that have nothing to do with autism are being included in the classification.

The great studies on autism in the past on close inspection, to prove a theory a test is designed and run on three hand picked subjects, answers that do not fit the theory are thrown out, and a paper is published. A generation later university students are told this is a proven fact of Science, and will be for all time. They base their research on this truth.

Psychology is not a research science, those getting degrees are closer to Social Workers. On the job they are not looking to disprove what they were taught, but only to make a good living, have job security, a condo, new car, and a 401k. "When the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems look like nails."

Physics run by the same rules would be called a Religion.

While the Human Genome Project does show when populations split, how they spread, it does not reach conclusions like, "And that is why Chinese are Taoists." Psychology is full of such thoughts, and full of something else.

Psychology and Scientology are twins born in the 60's. At least Scientology admits to being a religion.

The problem with the hairless ground ape is, there are many more true belivers, who taking in a little knowledge, will apply it to everything. Thinkers are rare, and those who would question long held beliefs even rarer.

I favor the study of atomic energy, and the restricted use of atomic weapons. A knowledge of Genetics has the same potential for abuse, perhaps the potential to eradicate the species.

The same methods spoken of for DNA adjustment, grafting a mutation on to a flu virus, such as the one now which is part human, part pig, part bird, is a dangerous form of engineering.

In our chemical era DDT was seen as the cure for many problems, dioxen as not a problem, Tetra Ethel Lead as a good thing.

Replacing insecticides with biologically engineered pathogens, or better yet grafting them into the food plants, are now seen as a good thing. Other uses for this growing technology, curing Autism. I do not like people who see me as a lab rat.

I did some work with atomic energy. I documented the fallout over New Mexico from government tests. The government had long denied that the disorders in cattle, and the human death rate from rare disorders, had anything to do with their tests. Cattle that had their lips and hooves fall off were approved for slaughter by the FDA, the USDA, and their meat sent to market. We proved after the fact that they had Strontium 90 and Cesium 121 poisoning, and the people did too. Congress passed a law barring suits for damages.

It now comes out that many war babies are dying due to eating that meat.

Troops were stationed within the blast range, they lived, for a while. The government still denies that Agent Orange had anything to do with the problems of our troops in Viet Nam. They have admitted to giving people LSD without their knowledge or consent.

We have a lot less knowledge about the tests of private industry. Those who work high voltage powerlines have a high rate of brain cancer, since the spread of cell phones bees leave the hive and never return, and during power failures, I feel like I just suddenly took off a backpack.

I am all in favor of gaining knowledge, but some things offend my sense of ethics.

Inventor, please don't make such posts in the near future, I'm just back from hospital, had an operation on my eyes yesterday and the doctor doesn't allow laughing till I cry for at least a week. Especially Al Gore and the thermostat, I shouldn't read that kind of comment till the muscles operated on don't hurt so much from laughing!

Same for Sue, please don't use the word "hunch" this week as I read it as you had "lunch".

See, if you knew me as a child you would think I had nothing BUT mirror neurons. They need to look at all the manifestations, not just the Rainman-stereotypical ones. They always forget that we are not all good or bad at the same things, but unpredictably very good or very bad different things, with very few areas of average performance.