(BAP) Broad Autism Phenotype

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My guess is that when it's all understood (25 years' time?) it will come down to three factors: genetics (comprehensively established as relevant); epigenetics (the trail is heating up) and physiological functions in cells at a molecular level which affect whole body function including brain function (the trail is currently being identified).

When these three factors are completely understood, and the interactions between them completely understood, the inhabitants of wrong planet will have choices that we don't even imagine in our wildest dreams now. My only regret is that I won't be around to see it Well at least not in fleshly form!

Don't forget environmental influences, perhaps outside as well as inside the womb.

I would guess that environment plays a role in epigenetic results.

Yes, that must be considered and it's part of the epigenetic discipline.

My mother used to smoke like a chimney; she quit about 30 year ago.

She probably smoked when she was pregnant with me--maybe this could be a potential causation.

I don't believe in the "vaccinations cause autism" theory--but could the sheer physical shock of vaccination cause one to become autistic?

I can't see vaccination as a causal factor though it could impact on something that is - that can't be ruled out until all the unknowns are known. Ultimately, everything that goes into the body impacts on cells. Science understands some of the impacts, though more are being discovered all the time; and until you know all the separate impacts, you can't assess the impact of single and multifaceted interactions that impact on cell physiology and how.

Personally though I think the simplistic idea vacc. = autism is where it belongs, in the rubbish bin.

I didn't say vaccinations themselves cause autism. I'm wondering if the shock and pain experienced in vaccination could cause it. I've seen babies really react severely to vaccinations

Don't forget the combined vaccines that they give to children.

I know you didn't, Kraftie, sorry I didn't make that clearer. There's no way of knowing so far as I know about the shock impact. Who knows... could it have some kind of triggering impact on something else or some other cellular process? It's a theoretical proposition that no one at this stage can answer though...

I've seen the way babies react to vaccinations. Nothing to do with what's in the vaccination itself. It's the physical reaction to the shot. It's to the point, almost, where I would advocate sedating them during the time of vaccination.

I doubt it very much that this causes autism--and I'm 99.9999 sure that vaccinations themselves don't cause it.

This is just idle speculation on my part.

I think epigenetics has a basis.

Autism is definitely not a "purely" genetic disorder, especially in the Mendelian sense.

My family is quite similar to yours:

. Maternal grandmother: Stenographer - father was an engineer (maternal great grandfather?)
. Maternal grandfather: Chemical engineer
. Paternal grandmother: Science (not sure what area) professor
. Paternal grandfather: Mining engineer

. Mother: Had a degree in business but never had any real jobs, unlike my father had quite a decent work ethic but vast emotional problems and suffered problematic relations with him. Extremely pedantic, perfectionist and controlling, and probably the reason I have OCD. It is unknown whether she has any actual disorders (likely) or is just a volatile, eccentric person.

. Father: No real occupation since was extremely 'lazy', gambling problems etc. (possibly ADHD), but follows the same suit of ability as his parents (math/science).

. Father's sister: Almost identical to my father, without gambling problems.

. Sister: 1 year younger than me, has no idea what she wants to do. Has traits predominantly from my father but is still very similar to me, aside from her extreme sociability.

. Me: Skillset is science/maths, aside from the visual/spatial. I have a discrepancy between my visual/spatial and verbal or numerical ability. I have a mixed bag of traits from both parents.

Unlike you, I have no autism or BAP in my family, but there are traits. Because my father's parents were always against any medical diagnoses due to their mantra 'hardwork gets you anywhere, anything is an excuse', there has never been any relevant investigation.

I'm pleased to see this thread has already reached 3 pages. It's very interesting to read.

Thanks.

That's very interesting.

I too have the often-noted science ability and so does my NT daughter. She is very NT, no shadowing there, but my other daughter is Aspergers (doesn't share the family skill set though very good at language and languages, did a Masters in French literature, is a journalist/writer, successful but lives as a recluse when not travelling the world writing).

Of my 5 grandchildren: 2 Asps, 1 "frank autie" (he couldn't 'pass' no matter how hard he tried), 1 shadow, 1 NT.

What also runs through the family especially from my generation down is myriad difficulties with immune conditions, (immunodeficiency, impaired immunity, serious allergies, auto-immune problems, eg coeliac disease etc) and I have no doubt whatsoever that this is inter-related, at least for us, with being on the spectrum or close to it.

What I am not sure of (yet) is whether these conditions affect only a subset of the whole spectrum, or in some latent way, affect everyone on it. I do a lot of research every day (the luxury of time and being retired), a minimum of 2 hours. It has been the fascinating learning curve. Every week something surprises me and I wonder why I never thought of it..!

The women on my mum's side of the family don't share so strongly the skillset of maths/science, but the males in their family have a history of engineering etc. as I posted above. I'm not sure why this is. My sister is actually planning on going into the arts.

The women are also very emotional and caring (like you) compared to the men on my mum's side of the family. My mum's father for example, has been described by her as 'sadistic', and the stories she has told me and how he acts now both align with that. My father's side of the family tend to be arrogant, stern, argumentative. I inherited a grand portion of that, but I stuck strongly by my mother's side growing up, and being gay, I'm sure that has negated some of this coldness I may have had.

There are definitely 'light' autistic traits in my family, but it's impossible to determine the degree. For example, when young, my dad actually had an interest I associated with Asperger's - he was obsessed with collecting Baseball cards and noting the details of each, and the details of the games he played with them. He also struggled socially and has always been impulsive (though that's more resembling of ADHD). There is of course, more examples I could provide.

I would expect that if I were to have kids, eventually one would more likely be autistic than an NT family without the traits that both sides of mine have had.



I find this really interesting.

My mum's family has a history of bowel problems, and slight motor problems (i.e. shaking hands) which I inherited. Again, because there was rarely any medical involvement on my dad's side, I know little of his family health problems.

In other respects I am quite lucky, as both families have low rates of cancer, heart disease and there has never once been Alzheimer's.

I've noticed a schism starting up in the research community recently, which will most probably snowball or die out: there is a small relatively new (during the past 5 years) group of very well established researchers now saying that the existing paradigm of ASD as a neurological disorder is back to front: the doubters have done studies which surprisingly suggest that altered neurology is an effect, more than a cause, of a whole-of-body micro-cellular dysfunction that takes place in every cell in every part of the body. In a nutshell, the body is affecting the brain, not the other way around, because of DNA differences that are inherited. (I have hugely oversimplified this). It will be fascinating to see what unfolds in the next 10 years re this. The jury will be out for a long time.

There is no way to diagnose the dearly departed, I suppose. However, my father who died in September of 1988 at the age of sixty-two was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. My older brother who committed suicide when he was eighteen and I was sixteen back in 1971 would have been a stereotype of a type aspie - totally withdrawn - paced and talked to himself constantly and lived in his own world and was into astronomy and designing plans for spaceships since he was about eleven years old. But of course at that time the diagnoses of Asperger syndrome or HFA or other more mild forms of autism did not exist. My mother who died at age of seventy-five in 1997 - I suspect as I look back upon it had some form of autism. So, I guess I was genetically set up.

I don't get this. It sounds like you are saying the new paradigm is just a very basic understanding of genetics in general and behavioral genetics in particular. I think you must have oversimplified in a way that leaves out something important. How would this "doubter" position differ from that of an existing paradigm person who thinks that miscoded calcium channels play a key role? It seems a GxE perspective is necessary no matter what camp people are in.