Autism and reward pathways

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I have the feeling that my autism is caused by some sort of lack of inner motivation. What makes NTs different from autistics is their liveliness. They seem highly motivated about life. Reminds me whatching the Bukowski tapes. At one point Charles Bukowski recounting his childhood, he noticed how other kids would engage in fights and would be so immersed in it while he wouldn't feel that motivation. This is how I felt all of my life. I feel that there must be something neurological in that direction. I mean, the social deficits can be explained by a lack of feeling reward from socialising. Also the special interests are different from normal interests in the sense that they are not functional, they are not benefit oriented. That means that autistic people may not feel the reward from engaging in beneficial activities, like NTs do. With no proper reward pathways we are disconnected from seeking the advantageous in this world. Therefore our difficulties with happiness.

There seems to be some serious (in my opinion) research on the topic. Here are two sources:

https://mappingignorance.org/2018/09/03 ... in-autism/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32914568/

Sure.

From my own point of view of being asocial;
The reward I get from social interaction is the outcome of social interaction -- if it goes well or if it aligns with whatever goal I have, not social interactions in itself.

And it's got nothing to do with the individual interacting me -- the only way that mattered is how I associate a particular individual, which itself, not a reward, but more like a buffer from uncertainty...
Or anticipate; positively, neutrally or negatively.

Many aspies seem to inclined to default negative associations due to experiences, hoping for good outcomes -- or rather, escape or expect negative outcomes.

Mine is just flat neutral and no expectations except for those who I really care enough about. It's just me -- if someone bothers me, if someone bothers me from being busy or from being bored.
The former would be disruptive, but the latter would be all well and good.

It would matter to those who feel lonely and want a place in this world full of NTs.
But that doesn't matter to me.

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I don't know if I would go so far to say that this is the cause of Autism. It is something that happens in Autistic people, but I don't know if I would stretch that to the cause of Autism.

You might be on to something; although I'd say personally I'm highly motivated, it's just that "things fall off my plate" so easily I constantly lose track of what I'm doing, except for immediately.

I had one shot of vodka before a job interview and performed 10x better socially. As in knowing what to say and how to say it etc.
Alcohol blocks the neurotransmitter glutamate . which is high in autistics, so i assume glutamate inhibits social intellect somehow.

First link: Social reward --- not interested. Show me my information has been used effectively and for good. That will light up my reward pathways! Guess what scientists, NTs don't respond very well when they're shown their information had been used effectively for good. Their brain remains relatively dark. Weird. Apparently, they want someone to pat them on the back or give them a piece of symbolic cheese in front of their peers who clap loudly and make a ruckus. How crazy is that?

Second link: I need a translator, but if the gist is that ASD persons respond differently to NT-biased rewards then that makes a lot of sense. Guess what, scientists? NT persons respond different to ASD-biased rewards also.

In my opinion achievement and energy is personality or upbringing. I'm an achiever. My Autistic mother is an achiever. My Autistic daughter is an achiever. We are self-motivated to the Nth degree and it's annoying to many people. I am the most energetic of all of us which is also annoying to many people. It came from my NT father: personality if you will, ADHD which some studies indicate is correlated with MTHFR A1298C he passed to me which I passed on to my NT son (which neither my non-energetic mom nor daughter have). In the meantime my mother, I and my daughter have the MTHFR C677T correlated to ASD. Yes, I have two MTHFR defects - I'm the luckiest . After I made it through the fields of death (up until my 30s), I've done well enough for myself, although as you may know it's a bit of a crap shoot with a hypersensitive nervous system. I'm definitely trying to self-pave reward paths around living.

I do not get any 'high' from exercise. Zero endorphins are released if I physically exert myself to any extent. I just get the physical exhaustion, breathlessness and aching limbs. This is a huge disincentive for me to exercise, no immediate reward at all.

I've got a strong "reward pathway" - I get a lot out of achieving targets I've set myself. If my stream of self-attained results dries up for more than a few hours, I can feel quite down. I suspect there's little else in my life that keeps me happy.

Socially it might be a bit different, and I'm sure I often come away from social encounters not feeling as rewarded as I might. I often think I've failed to do any good, failed to develop anything. But some of it is probably just down to poor social intelligence. I remember visiting a friend who'd had a nervous breakdown, and telling a counsellor that I felt I'd been no help at all. She said that just being there was in itself a good thing. "Being there" never seems to register as anything at all to me, though these days I understand it better on an intellectual level. If nobody ever made contact with me I'd feel very abandoned and lonely, so I guess when I make contact with others then I'm doing some kind of good. Yet to me it never feels like I am at the time.