A Psychogenic Cause of Asperger's

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Hi,

I’m new to this forum. While I’ve never posted, I've read posts here off and on for the past several months. Recently, I 've come to believe that certain cases of Asperger’s, including my own, may have a psychogenic etiology. Below, is some of my reasoning.

Cortisol levels are known to double within 30 minutes of waking up in the morning. A research paper from 2009 that found people with Asperger’s syndrome did not have a normal peak of cortisol in the morning. This paper speculated that this lack of cortisol affected a person’s ability to cope with stressors throughout the day and consequently affected the way a person engaged the world. This paper did not speculate why there might be an abnormality in a person’s daily cortisol cycle. However, some evidence suggests that emotional isolation in childhood may result in such a pattern. An article from March 2013 found that maternal separation of 1 year or more during childhood produced a decreased cortisol response to awakening e.g. the same pattern seen with people who have Asperger’s. An article published in PNAS in November of 2012 reported that rhesus monkeys who had been separated from their mothers early in their development had significantly lower plasma cortisol levels after 1.5 and 3 years. These monkeys displayed decreases in locomotion, socialization and displayed increases in stereotypical behaviors compared with mother-reared monkeys. The results of this study showed that the effects of maternal separation are long-lasting. Finally, a study of children adopted from Romania reported that these children had a much higher incidence of autistic behavior. It was speculated that this behavior was secondary to early separation from a loving environment.

The “refrigerator mother theory” of autism spectrum disorders has certainly fallen out of favor in the United States and much of the world. However, the articles I mentioned above also seem to support the refrigerator mother theory / early childhood trauma theories. While I’m not certain that this is always the case, I believe that it is in certain circumstances.

Given this viewpoint, I believe that there are steps that may improve symptoms of Asperger's immediately and possibly long-term. Logically, increasing one’s cortisol in the morning may improve symptoms. Vigorous exercise such as swimming has been shown to nearly double cortisol levels. If this is done early in the morning, then your increase in cortisol should approximate the normal peak. In my own experience, vigorous exercise in the morning improves my symptoms markedly. Caffeine also increases cortisol and may result in an improvement in symptoms. I choose to avoid this option since I feel that it makes my anxiety worse. Finally, participating in loving relationships, if possible, may help to retrain your brain. This option has been advocated by many who attribute autism spectrum disorders to psychogenic causes. Granted, this last option is often difficult to accomplish.

I've been dedicated to a strict and vigorous workout regimen for more than 20 years and gone through periods in which my coffee consumption was through the roof for years at a time and none of that has ever done a thing to change my autistic symptoms (if anything, caffeine only makes my sensory issues and anxieties worse). I also have a close knit extended family and never underwent any separation from my mother during infancy. No refrigerators.

The symptoms of Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism are just a variation of the same neurological disorder that defines Classic Kanner's Autism: Sensory Processing Dysfunction, or sensory hypersensitivity, which some recent MRI studies indicate may be the result of an overabundance of neurological sensory receptivity. All the behaviors and social deficits that Asperger Syndrome represents are easily explainable as directly resulting from the effects of that constant sensory overload.


Ben Thomas | Discover | November 7, 2013:

"For years, studies have appeared to show that the brains of autistic people are underconnected in comparison with the brains of non-autistic people—both in terms of structure (physical connections between brain cells) and of function (information exchanged among brain areas). In a way, this seemed to make sense on an intuitive level: People with autism might be task-focused and socially withdrawn because their brains couldn’t connect some of their experiences with others—or so the thinking went.

But as other investigators examined this research more closely, they began to notice flaws. Most of these studies only examined connectivity during specific cognitive tasks, and only within a select few brain regions. This led researchers to wonder what they might find if they scanned the brains of autistic people as a whole, all at once, when they weren’t focused on specific tasks.

What they discovered may overturn the prevailing view of the autistic brain. Two new studies by independent teams have found that the brains of autistic children and adolescents are actually overconnected in comparison with the brains of non-autistic people—and that this hyperconnectivity takes on some distinctive patterns.

The studies, one at San Diego State University and another at Stanford University, consisted of MRI scanning of children and teens with autism and a non-affected control group, all of whom were directed to think about nothing in particular. The results were surprising: In the San Diego study, brains of adolescents with severe autism showed strikingly greater resting connectedness than brains of adolescents with mild autism, which were in turn more connected than unaffected adolescents. And the same held true for younger children in the Stanford study: autistic children’s brains displayed much greater functional connectivity than the brains of their non-autistic counterparts did.

What’s more, the specifics of this hyperconnectivity provide some intriguing hints about the nature of autism. Both studies found that functional connectivity in autistic people’s brains was most increased in the visual and extrastriate cortices, which deal with sight; and in the temporal lobe, which plays crucial roles in processing and associating sensory input."

>>Full Article<<

Hi Dave11,

I realize this may be a sore or unpleasant question, but have you ever stopped to question that maybe you have done this research in an effort to "fix" yourself, due to the perfectionist trait that people with Asperger's have? Just something to ponder.

Perhaps there are different etiologies of autism. What is beneficial for one person may not be helpful to another. I’ve read about exercise benefitting other people with Asperger’s on this forum. I know exercise really seems help decrease my own symptoms.

It’s apparent that maternal separation can induce signs of autism. The monkey model was striking in that maternal separation produced the same hormonal and behavioral changes seen in humans with autism.

While the connectivity hypothesis is admittedly better accepted than psychogenic theories, there’s a major design limitation associated with the use of functional MRI. Movement is a confounding variable that is difficult to account for.

Autism Brain Scans Flawed? You Read It Here First | Discover | November 1, 2012:
When a person moves their head while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging – a method that maps how different neuroanatomical structures of the brain interact in real time, its functional connectivity – it looks like the neural activity observed in autism.

Head motion affects estimates of functional connectivity. The more motion, the weaker the measured connectivity in long-range networks, while shorter range connections were stronger. Disconcertingly, this is exactly what’s been proposed to happen in autism (although in fairness, not all the evidence for this comes from fMRI). People with autism, and people with almost any mental or physical disorder, on average tend to move more than healthy controls.

Dave, what I think you're seeing is probably the origins of reactive attachment disorder. RAD, as you probably know, is caused by early neglect and can create a child with autistic-like behavior, even without autism. Severe cases will cause developmental delay for life.

Feral children are extreme cases of RAD--early neglect, carried on for years; no exposure to langauges or life experiences. They're thankfully rare, but modern examples exist.

Have you read about the feral child called Danielle?

Here's a link:
The girl in the window
It's a pretty sad story. Danielle was neglected very badly early on, and her family is calling what she has "environmentally-caused autism". She certainly has a lot of autistic traits--she has trouble with language, her sensory system is scrambled, and she tends to stim. There's no evidence that she started out with anything more than her birth family's mild intellectual disability, something which, if inherited from parents, usually stays mild in the children too.

She's been adopted now and is doing much better--notably, she's happy, capable of laughing and connecting and communicating. But she'll probably always be different.

Is there any connection between RAD and autism? Well, maybe autism and RAD both change early development; maybe they both affect the same cognitive traits. In autism, communicating is naturally difficult to learn, even when parents, children, and therapists work hard at learning. In the early-neglect RAD variant that causes autistic-like traits, communicating is difficult because the child has been neglected, refused enough opportunity to practice.

So does the lack of early communication affect autistics and RAD children's cognitive development similarly? Perhaps. Or it could be a completely different thing that just looks different. After all, autistic children exhibit normal attachment to their parents, and they don't have the problems with trust that RAD children do.

Maybe some researchers could do a comparison of an age-matched cohort of RAD children and autistic children; it would be interesting. Probably a cohort of children who survived a deprived childhood in an orphanage, compared to a cohort of autistic children who grew up with their families. See what's the same, what's different. Maybe we can find out why "early intervention" for autistic kids seems to result in better outcomes--maybe it relieves some of the problems that come from not being able to communicate until you catch on to language, which can be quite late if you have a speech delay.

I can understand that, it makes it sound more like a mental health problem in that respect.

I don't believe there is any one good answer, except the one that fits best for an individuals needs/desires.

I am extremely curious by nature and asked my above question out of shear curiosity for your thoughts on it. I found it to be true in myself so I avoid the temptation to prescribe to any treatments for myself outside the therapy I was in before a diagnosis.

I have observed over the years, how people on WP that have been neglected and abandoned, either because of their difference (asd) or otherwise, have taken it upon themselves to explore where their trauma starts and their autism ends. It's a tough call.

In many ways it is important to know our truth, for we can rarely move beyond our limitations until we can call them by their rightful name and then go deeper into who we really are, beyond neurology and psychology.

The list of Aspie characteristics I have given below may prove helpful for those on such a quest to find distinguishing characteristics of asd over trauma related disturbance.

 
Routines (inflexibility)
 
Intensity of special interest
 
Intensity of communication
 
Little Philosopher in expression
 
Quirkiness / Oddness
 
Dress, fashion indifference
 
Hypo / Hyper sensitivities
 
Hyper functionality / Giftedness
 
Eccentric
 
Information processing


Many in the spectrum know their own, they sense it, feel it, intuit it. ..........the list above is just a 'jist list'

When triggered, Trauma patterning will generally result in thoughts such as "this will kill me" Whereas, with most people in the spectrum, when overwhelmed or in meltdown, will have thoughts such as, "I FEEL like this is going to kill me" with trauma the pulse goes through the roof, with meltdowns, the person knows it will pass, we just need to get the hell out the way of people.


This may be a useful guide to distinguish the neurological from the psychological.


 

Based on my experience of my Autism symptoms being greatly exacerbated by intestinal dysbiosis, it makes sense to me that if there's a correlation between being separated from your mother at a very young age and incidences of Autism that it's due to not being breast fed during that time and thus not populating the digestive tract with a healthy balance of various probiotic bacteria.

_________________
No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

A few points

1. The cortisol and Asperger's study was limited in a number of ways. Only 18 year old males were involved, only 38 in total and the cortisol level was only measured at waking up and 30 minutes later, so whether the peak was simply shifted a bit is unknown.
2. There's a lot of evidence for a genetic aspect to Asperger's. Given that two different causes with the same symptoms should be two different disorders, and that there are already plenty of trauma-based disorders with symptoms close to those of Asperger's, it's not likely that Asperger's will ever be considered psychogenic. This is purely a matter of definitions, but a logical way of going about it.
3. Going from cortisol peaks being different in 18 year old males with Asperger's to saying that through exercise creating a cortisol peak improves autistic behaviour is a giant leap to make, one you really can't make on the evidence you have. Doing exercise in the morning is a great idea, but it most likely won't help fix Asperger's.
4. You feeling better doing exercise is, aside from the obvious benefits, easily explained as placebo. It may really feel as if it works, have real effects even, and still just be you feeling good about what you're doing.
5. Not a very nice argument, but a true one nonetheless. Thousands of people study years to learn how people's brains and bodies work. If the answer was as simple as your cortisol hypothesis, it would've been found already. Answers to problems like the cause of Asperger's/Autism will be found by professionals who have studied for years to learn enough to do the research, and then spend years doing the research. The chance of any of the rest of us finding the answer by reading around on the internet is zero.

I wasn't familiar with the diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder. The story of Danielle illustrates that neglect and trauma can indeed induce autism symptoms. It would seem to follow that a lesser degrees of neglect and trauma would result in less severe signs of autism. One may even speculate that different types of neglect and/or trauma produce different symptoms of autism.

I agree with kicker that different explanations are going to be more appealing to different people. Like I mentioned before, most parents are going to find a psychosocial explanation for autism distasteful. This could in fact be a reason such theories have fallen out of favor. I'll admit that I have a bias towards a psychosocial explanation in that it suggests more potential for improvement.

The line between autism and reactive attachment disorder is indeed difficult to define. I am not certain that the two are always distinct. Not that long ago, it was popular opinion that autism was psychosocial in origin. In certain parts of the world, this is still the belief. It is important to consider how our geographic and temporal location affects our opinions. An analogy is how people in different parts of the world can have vastly different religions and each person is adamant that their religion is correct.

I don't think that cortisol levels are a complete explanation of the pathology in Asperger's. However, cortisol levels do seem to correlate with the signs of the syndrome, based off of imperfect data.

Theore makes an interesting point in that thousands of experts have failed to produce a coherent explanation for autism. Perhaps the wrong questions are being asked. Personally, I do not believe that an epidemic can be caused by genetic factors. Also, I am unaware of any environmental factors that have been shown to explain the drastic rise in autism cases. I have found the dietary explanations to be unconvincing. However, I don't doubt that eating better may make a person feel better and be better able to handle their symptoms. While I'm not so presumptuous to think that I have a full explanation for autism, I do believe that some cases are psychosocial.

Just joined so getting up to speed on these debates.

(I have Aspergers but can mostly disguise it in everyday life due to a load of coping strategies and lots of tiring effort).

I am really interested in this discussion NOT because I want a cure or think there is something wrong with me but just in an attempt to understand myself.

I was separated from my mother for the first week of my life due to illness (not sure what but would like to find out) she told me this was very hard for her, apparently I was whipped away from her immediately and taken to ICU.

As a result I did not receive motherly cuddles, touching, strokes, caresses, smells, body warmth and all the other bonding experience of immediate post natal babies etc in the normal way. This was not `refrigerator mother` at all, my mother was fantastically nurturing.

There is a strand of researchabout the interrelating effects of cortisol (the stress hormone) but to OXYTOCIN (the love hormone) which is in its infancy , but we could potentially extrapolate birth separation with potential for Autism or Aspie conditions. NB. I don think this is even a proper theory as yet just an idea. But very interesting nonetheless.

Oxytocin is being considered as a `cure` for Aspie/autitic traits. Although I don`t agree with the idea that we have an illness at all or like the idea of a `cure` (overall now I am reconciled to it and have some social support I actually like being me most of the time); it could be useful for some people if they are suffering as we all do at times.

Oh... I just thought I should add that I strongly think my father was an Aspie too..

This brings up the need for science to reconcile the nature Vs nurture (or psychosocial influences) argument we are having and the fact that there is a third way.
So to attempt to unite the two, this position would cite that a potential combination of biological/genetic predisposition and environmental triggers might lead to the expression or non-expression of a symptom (and in differing amounts and with a range of variability in how it expressed).

I believe there are several possible causes of autism. I for one believe my autism is genetic and that that gene was turned on by a C-section birth after oxygen deprivation. My childhood was trauma free, and I have a mother and father that have always shown great love for me and supported me in all that I have done.

I am one of the Aspies here that is glad to be autistic and does not want a cure. Any kind of alteration of my autism through brain retraining or other methods I do not care to partake of because I am most satisfied with the way I am in being autistic.

I do understand that there are others who wish for cures and alterations to their autism. That is their opinion and choice. They have a right to that, and I respect that. And I have a right to not want any alteration or cure for my autism.

We each have our own opinions and beliefs. And that is wonderful. As has been said many times, "You've met one person with autism, and you've met one person with autism."