From a neurotypical's perspective

[Outsider]

Neurodivergence means your brain is literally different and you react to medications differently than documented.

For the reason mentioned above, autistic people are offered all kinds of second-line and third-line treatments.

In the long term, ideally the aim is lifestyle management.

If a person reacts to a medication differently than documented the result is unpredictable. Could it be that a medication is harmful to a specific person?

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

My brother had mental health issues given medication for it, do to lots of walking started losing weight, become almost anorexic, mother told him your medication dosage was to high for his weight, cut dosage regained weight.
So you are sort of on right track. Walking for hours and thinking was his thing no job no life. Life as a genius with no outlet died from stroke, typical for us with extra thick blood AB positive, viscosity matters.

 

[Boogs]

I know how the researchers arrive to the conclusion that a person has a brain damage or not. They have lists of symptoms that they classify as deviations from normal behavior and see how these abnormalities affect the structure of the brain.

From the sound of it there's considerable subtext to this, without which it's pretty hard to evaluate either way, for instance how did they come up with the list and what methodology did they use to decide those symptoms are just the result of autism? I presume each symptom would have needed it's own method of measuring
If it's a scientific paper then some comparison data that's used to evaluate their results should either be clearly defined, or referred to if from an acknowledged separate source. If there's anything undefined like that then it isn't a scientific paper as I would recognise. Reproducibility is critical.

They compare MRI brain charts of these people with charts of the people who exhibit normal behavior and classify a patent’s brain as a damaged or not (“normal behavior” is not my term, it seems demeaning to me, but they use it in scientific papers).

So they define the damage only by comparing their MRI technique between what they define as normal and what they define as autistic?
If so, what method did they use to pre-diagnose those samples before performing the scans? This would be critical to the whole thing as they seem to be having to rely on a pre-existing method of diagnosis. Do they make any comment on how they handled that?

My level of expertise with cluster software is high enough to use it for the purpose of comparison of brains of different people. But you cannot expect me to define what normal behavior is and what is not.

I'm not expecting you to define that, although you have been saying (or given the appearance) that the claims are explaining autism, but I would expect you to consider that any comparisons are made against known and validated baselines. Normal behaviour is only meaningful when the specific behaviour being measured is precisely defined.

As you know, psychology is not a science in strict definition of the word. As far as I know, ...

Firstly, I'm not sure I would agree with that premise. A strict definition is:
"Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe."
There are plenty others but all very similar in essence.
How do you think psychology doesn't fit that description?

... there is no single theory of “abnormal behavior” so it would be unrealistic to expect me to develop one.

I'm not sure where this has come from? I don't think I asked you about 'abnormal behaviour', did I? Please quote if I have as I'm not aware of doing so. As above I'm not expecting you to come up with theories, but I am asking for explanations for their bold claims. For me using something like 'normal behaviour' without clearly defining it would be a red flag that would need chasing down, otherwise it's like quoting temperatures without saying what scale you're using, it's a calibration without which the results are meaningless.

None of the authors, whose articles I have read, claim that their MRI scans produce pictures of a single neuron.

I didn't suggest they had, what I was explaining is the fundamental difficulty in understanding how brains and minds work. The complexity as I said, is way beyond anything we can come close to understanding. This is why so little is known about how the brain works. We don't understand how a normal (no known conditions) brain works so when undefined damage is given as an explanation I hope you can see how unsatisfying that is when challenging currently accepted knowledge.

But in the end we're not really getting anywhere with this, as you're unable to answer any questions I have on it from memory (which is quite reasonable, I doubt I could recall details like that), so unless you've any input, I'd suggest we leave it unless you do find the paper some time, in which case I would be interested to read if you do, thanks.

 

[vergil96]

If a person reacts to a medication differently than documented the result is unpredictable. Could it be that a medication is harmful to a specific person?

It is very common in the autistic community to have differrent than expected results of medications that affect the brain. Moreso than in the general population.

 

[Boogs]

It is very common in the autistic community to have differrent than expected results of medications that affect the brain. Moreso than in the general population.

This is certainly recorded here by members, but it also has to be appreciated that this occurs with all sorts of people. Drug responses can vary quite a lot across the population, this is one reason why there are so many variants of the original Prozac, because people can behave differently and not always be helped by one of those drug's and may need to try a number of them before finding one that does work properly, and for some people none of them do.
Very much depends on the type of medication and conditions present, I would expect a drug affecting neurology is more likely to have varying results for those with less common neurology regardless of whether it's autism or not.

 

[Outsider]

From the sound of it there's considerable subtext to this, without which it's pretty hard to evaluate either way, for instance how did they come up with the list and what methodology did they use to decide those symptoms are just the result of autism? I presume each symptom would have needed it's own method of measuring
If it's a scientific paper then some comparison data that's used to evaluate their results should either be clearly defined, or referred to if from an acknowledged separate source. If there's anything undefined like that then it isn't a scientific paper as I would recognise. Reproducibility is critical.


So they define the damage only by comparing their MRI technique between what they define as normal and what they define as autistic?
If so, what method did they use to pre-diagnose those samples before performing the scans? This would be critical to the whole thing as they seem to be having to rely on a pre-existing method of diagnosis. Do they make any comment on how they handled that?


I'm not expecting you to define that, although you have been saying (or given the appearance) that the claims are explaining autism, but I would expect you to consider that any comparisons are made against known and validated baselines. Normal behaviour is only meaningful when the specific behaviour being measured is precisely defined.



Firstly, I'm not sure I would agree with that premise. A strict definition is:
"Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe."
There are plenty others but all very similar in essence.
How do you think psychology doesn't fit that description?


I'm not sure where this has come from? I don't think I asked you about 'abnormal behaviour', did I? Please quote if I have as I'm not aware of doing so. As above I'm not expecting you to come up with theories, but I am asking for explanations for their bold claims. For me using something like 'normal behaviour' without clearly defining it would be a red flag that would need chasing down, otherwise it's like quoting temperatures without saying what scale you're using, it's a calibration without which the results are meaningless.


I didn't suggest they had, what I was explaining is the fundamental difficulty in understanding how brains and minds work. The complexity as I said, is way beyond anything we can come close to understanding. This is why so little is known about how the brain works. We don't understand how a normal (no known conditions) brain works so when undefined damage is given as an explanation I hope you can see how unsatisfying that is when challenging currently accepted knowledge.

But in the end we're not really getting anywhere with this, as you're unable to answer any questions I have on it from memory (which is quite reasonable, I doubt I could recall details like that), so unless you've any input, I'd suggest we leave it unless you do find the paper some time, in which case I would be interested to read if you do, thanks.

Currently, the psychologists have defined a combination of symptoms pertinent to autism. A weight is assigned to each symptom. If the sum of weights exceeds certain number then a person is deemed to be autistic.

Psychology and psychiatry are not exact sciences in contrast to physics and chemistry, so the definition of autism is arbitrary to some degree like any other mental diagnosis (bipolar, schizophrenia, paranoia etc.). On top of that, medical definitions of certain conditions tend to change, as it was in the case of autism.

To me this is a matter of semantics – instead of saying that a person is autistic simply note that his/her condition meets certain criteria that makes her a candidate for an MRI scan and thgen study the results of a screening.

If a person was not diagnosed with any condition he/she is qualified as NT. As far as I know, the initial brain scans were done exclusively on NTs to see what areas of the brain are responsible for speech, body movements, reading, etc. later the pictures of NT brains scans were compared to brain scans of people diagnosed with various conditions. The autistic brain has the same activity zones as the NT brain when they perform the same tasks. This cannot be said of the brains of schizophrenics, paranoids, etc.; some areas of their brains show so little electromagnetic activity that they are practically dead.

Regarding the definition of science that you provided – psychology doesn’t fit this definition because mot all its hypotheses are testable. For example, there is no way of testing whether the sub- conscience exists.

As I noted before, we have philosophical differences; to me the word “mind” is meaningless. Apparently, these differences cause mutual misunderstanding. You’re right, we should bring this discussion to the end, at least for now.

 

[Outsider]

It appears that there is a medication on the market that helps to treat nonverbal forms of autism. Has anyone heard about this drug? I know the woman whose son, although not being completely nonverbal, speak on rare occasions.

Parents say son with autism was nonverbal until trying an off-label drug that treats chemo side effects

 

[vergil96]

It appears that there is a medication on the market that helps to treat nonverbal forms of autism. Has anyone heard about this drug? I know the woman whose son, although not being completely nonverbal, speak on rare occasions.

Parents say son with autism was nonverbal until trying an off-label drug that treats chemo side effects

I need to take follic acid as a supplement. Nothing ever has affected what are supposed to be my autism symptoms. Autism runs in my family and I'm not aware of it being treatable in any way. Maybe the child was severely deficient in follic acid, lack of follic acid causes malformations of the nervous system in fetuses, including complete lack of the brain (/serious) which is a deadly birth defect.

 

[Outsider]

I need to take follic acid as a supplement. Nothing ever has affected what are supposed to be my autism symptoms. Autism runs in my family and I'm not aware of it being treatable in any way. Maybe the child was severely deficient in follic acid, lack of follic acid causes malformations of the nervous system in fetuses, including complete lack of the brain (/serious) which is a deadly birth defect.

The article suggests that the child suffers from a deficit of folic acid (vitamin B) but it is not clear why. The doctor involved in the child's treatment postulated that the deficit is caused by some kind of blockage in the delivery system withiest specifying its cause.

The word "postulate" in used in physics as a synonym of "law of physics"; I'm not entirely sure what it means in medical science. It seems to me that the word is a substitute for "hypothesis".

 

[vergil96]

The article suggests that the child suffers from a deficit of folic acid (vitamin B) but it is not clear why. The doctor involved in the child's treatment postulated that the deficit is caused by some kind of blockage in the delivery system withiest specifying its cause.

The word "postulate" in used in physics as a synonym of "law of physics"; I'm not entirely sure what it means in medical science. It seems to me that the word is a substitute for "hypothesis".

It's not a scientific article, but beletristics. I wouldn't get too hung up on the language, because it might very well be a stylistic measure taken by a journalist who doesn't have any medical education.

My point is that nothing points to the notion that follic acid metabolism is universally the cause of autism. To me the article looks like sensationalism: "Look, new cancer cure!" and it's an overinterpretation and a wild leap from what the research has acrually found. Follic acid deficiency can cause damage to the nervous system and autism can at times result from brain damage or abnormalities in the nervous system of various kinds. There seems to be autism that is genetic too, but some is caused by brain damage such as perinatal hypoxia. Follic acid clearly points to brain damage. There is lots of research about other, genetic causes of autism, so it's clearly not universal. Autism is a symptom of the underlieing biological cause, just like many different causes can result in bleeding e.g. from the mouth, running nose, a headache and so on.

 

[Outsider]

It's not a scientific article, but beletristics. I wouldn't get too hung up on the language, because it might very well be a stylistic measure taken by a journalist who doesn't have any medical education.

My point is that nothing points to the notion that follic acid metabolism is universally the cause of autism. To me the article looks like sensationalism: "Look, new cancer cure!" and it's an overinterpretation and a wild leap from what the research has acrually found. Follic acid deficiency can cause damage to the nervous system and autism can at times result from brain damage or abnormalities in the nervous system of various kinds. There seems to be autism that is genetic too, but some is caused by brain damage such as perinatal hypoxia. Follic acid clearly points to brain damage. There is lots of research about other, genetic causes of autism, so it's clearly not universal. Autism is a symptom of the underlieing biological cause, just like many different causes can result in bleeding e.g. from the mouth, running nose, a headache and so on.

It could be sensationalism, I agree.

I saw the CBS special report expressing the doctor’s point of view. He said that, although the early results are encouraging, more research is needed to determine if this medication would work for a large population. He also said that pharmaceutical companies are unwilling to test the medication because it is inexpensive, so their profit margin will be small if they start producing it.

Clearly, metabolic irregularity has nothing to do with autism. To me the cause of autism is genetic in nature. However, I make a distinction between hereditary and acquired forms of autism.

I gave an example of acquired form of condition in this thread (German children with abnormally short limbs). There are reasons why I don’t believe that autism is a hereditary condition. The topic is very technical, but I’m going to present my take on autism in the near future, most likely, in this thread.

 

[Outsider]

I don’t think that autism is a hereditary condition. First of all, I’m going to evaluate the significance of the possibility that autism can be inherited.

There are couples with at least one partner being autistic and having autistic children. But at the same time there's much more couples with at least one partner being autistic but at the same time with none of their children having autism.

“According to a study published in Molecular Autism, children born to mothers with autism have a 5.4% chance of also being diagnosed with the disorder, while children born to fathers with autism have only a 1.5% chance.”

This is the result of a particular autism study. Some studies suggest the higher number of autistic couples having autistic children, the highest number that came to my attention is 20%.

Let’s assume that the figure, 20%, is correct. In order to reject a hypothesis, statisticians have established this rule – if the possibility of an event is less than 0.05 (5%) a hypothesis is rejected; otherwise, it is accepted. Therefore, the hypothesis of autism being inherited stays.

The chances of something happening are not calculated for idle curiosity. The course of an action depends on the possibility of having either positive or negative outcome.

Suppose, you are navigating a ship in dangerous waters in an area rife with underwater rocks. Suddenly you see another ship approaching yours on a potentially dangerous course. Your AI tells you that the chance of an encounter is 20%. Normally, you would take an evasive action. But there is an unknown possibility that your ship would hit a rock and sink. Since the possibility of collision is less than 50% it would be prudent to stay the course.

In case of autism, if I were a geneticist working on identification of causes of autism, I wouldn’t conduct a research based on hypothesis that autism is hereditary, and turn my attention to induced gene mutations caused by harmful chemicals and, perhaps, by higher levels of electromagnetic radiation existing in proximity of power lines.

In the future posts I will give a more detailed explanation of my estimate of causes of autism.