My pet theory on the cause of aspergers

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Well your lecturer is the equivalent to a global warming denier or a flat earth-er

Apparently according to my GP he is not alone a large majority in the medical community do not believe the brain can find new pathways, so I asked him for a figure he thinks if I recall correctly ( I'll ask him when he gets back from holidays) 20 % ,

Is he right that seems awfully high ?

interesting thread. I agree with donkey and rdos on this.
i'm not gonna rule out other theories but i think we can safely say there is definitely a genetic component.

What i find quite interesting is that there is not more categorisation so as to try to figure out if all autistics have characteristic features at all levels (DNA, brain, physical traits etc) It seems to me that there are huge variations and not just in severity.

I guess ultimately this is of no use as categorisation is a human construct but i think it could be useful to allow research to focus somewhat on specific areas. I'm sure this sort of approach will emmerge once more is known

Well obviously there's some issue with the frontal lobes. That's the executive functioning area. And many people with disorders where the frontal lobes are dysfunctional have a lot in common.
In my case I think my frontal lobes are just under aroused because of not enough dopamine transmitters being fired.

at least two other people in my family are autistic, with one diagnosed, and we're all quite different. I don't think we were all dropped on our heads as kids.

Frontal lobe damage? Really?

I mean I don't really know any of you and I shouldn't speak for any of you, but the frontal lobe is integral to thought synthesis. I have a hard time believing that AS could be related to an inactive frontal lobe; damage or reduced activity to the frontal lobes results in impulsiveness and acting without very much forethought, if any at all.

Personally, I feel my frontal lobes are over-active, which leads to a peculiar intelligence compared to what is referred here as an NT. Being over-active can lead to things like loss of initiative, motivation, and generally being overstimulated (excluding sensory over-stimulus), if it causes you to become focused on your internal world to the exclusion of the external world, especially when the external world is generally found to be a source of frustration, pain, and overall discomfort that we seem to have little control over in regulating, due perhaps because of the problem of having others misunderstand our needs and a thus implied predominance for under-valuing our ability because of this (to the point of deeming it a pathology, even brain damage *rolls eyes*).

I don't know if I like this mode of thought. But maybe I'm wrong and you'd all just agree that I'm on the spectrum and somehow got mostly good traits of autism out of it. I don't know; I don't even really know what such words like 'smart' or 'stupid' or 'intellectual' would even really mean because they are completely relative to perceptual context and ignorant of how that context can morph over time, a plasticity of nature itself and a philosophical problem of nature vs. nurture. It's easy to assume correlation implies causation, but things aren't always what they seem on the surface.

Personally, for you to call it brain damage of sorts, is an actual insult to my very core. We are NOT damaged, we are not dis-ordered and we do not suffer. -_-

I'm tired of seeing this constant spiel of crap about how we're some kind of freak of nature, their is no cause for aspergers, it has existed for thousands and thousands of years, we are simply the minority in the human species, one must understand you get breed's of cats and dogs as well as breed's of humans.

That's my point and case anyway, want to know more ask me about it, I'm not debating with 'damage' -_- on here..

AS has an 80% heritability estimate (i.e 80% of the variation in whether or not people have AS is caused by genetics as opposed to environment). Heritability estimates are just that -estimates- no one knows definitively how much genetics and environment respectively contribute to the disorder. These estimates are based on things like twin and adoption studies (behavioural genetics) not molecular genetics (actual DNA studies). In terms of molecular genetics there are various findings but the specific genes identified are only found in very small percentages of people with ASD's (they are just more common in people than in people without it-like fragile X for example- there are many many more like this). There has been no gene (or combination) consistently identified as a marker of ASD's . ASD's are almost certainly polygenetic and there is probably some amount of interaction between genes and the environment (including the pre-natal environment). However it seems that genetic play a VERY LARGE role in the development of ASD's.

If AS were "100% genetic" then you would expect a 100% heritability estimate or at least close to and close to a 100% concordance rate for monozygotic twins (one identical twin has ASD the other does too) and this is not the case! Also I don't know why people think they are arguing against what the OP said by saying that "it's genetic"- she didn't say it wasn't - genetics play a big role in the way the brain develops, of course, and the OP was talking about frontal lobe impairment being related to AS- impairment in certain areas of the frontal lobes and connectivity problems within networks involving frontal lobes have been found in people with ASD's - however differences/impairments in other regions have been found as well- and the results are pretty inconsistent at this time. However since different regions of the frontal lobes play a major role in social cognition, empathizing, organization, attention and other executive functions then they are almost certainly involved - of course the frontal lobes are involved in so many higher order functions and are implicated in many other disorders as well- the more you study biological psychology the more frustrated you become with how little is known- and how convoluted and inconclusive the results of these kinds of studies. Well,neuroscience is still in its infancy..........

Well, my pet theory is that autism is an evolutionary necessity, along with all the other different types of intelligence. Human beings wouldn't have been as successful as they have without a whole variety of intelligences and aptitudes, including those found in autistic individuals. Like all types of brain structure the autistic form can result in individuals with very compromised skills, but also in those with exceptional ones. And I don't really believe there's an 'autism' epidemic going on, just more and more people being identified.

I don't know anything about neuropsychology (which will be evident from my post) or statistics (which will also be evident). That's the thing about pet theories, they don't have to have any basis in fact or knowledge!

I’m on the side of Moonpenny. Who’s monitoring our evolution anyway? We’ve lost our hair and now wear cloths. We can express what we think with words. We show how we feel with a look on our face (Facial expressions). Three unique abilities mankind shares alone. Like it or not, we are evolving from the inside out. We are becoming more of a spiritual being, rather than an animal.