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Scientific Brain Linked to Autism

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the buffer-overflow dept.

squoozer writes "The BBC is reporting that a leading scientist in area of Developmental Psychopathology, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, is indicating that there is good chance that there is a scientific basis to the observed phenomenon that children with highly analytical parents are more likely to be autistic. He believes the genes which make someone analytical may also impair their social and communication skills. A weakness in these areas is the key characteristic of autism."

7 of 524 comments (clear)

  1. old news.... by scenestar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There used to be reports of higher rates of Autist kids in the region around silicon valley back during the dotcom boom.

    --
    perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
    1. Re:old news.... by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I remember reading this article in Wired a number of years ago (I would guess probably around December 2001 from the date on it). Interesting read, especially if you're curious about autism and Asperger's.

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      This guy's the limit!
  2. Wired article a few years back by Andrew+Lenahan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This reminds me of a really good article in Wired from maybe 2002 or so, about how autism rates were skyrocketing in Silicon Valley, far too much to be just coinidence, better diagnosis, etc.

    Anyone else remember it? It doesn't seem to be on their website (tried searching "autism" and "autistic"). It came with a quiz and everything. Anyone? Anyone?

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    Andrew Lenahan http://www.starblind.com/
  3. Kim Peek & NASA by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A while back, NASA conducted a fifteen year anniversary study on the savant known as Kim Peek. Peek was born with a strange brain deformity known as macrocephaly which results in the two hemispheres of the brain being linked due to a pocket of water at the base of the brain.

    Now, there has been a lot of speculation about how neurons work and what makes someone autistic. I once had a lengthy conversation with James Olds of George Mason's Krasnow Institute and asked him about Peek. Olds explained to me that it's very mysterious how savants develop. I asked him if Peek had an abnormally large cortex but he dismissed this, citing that elephants are not geniuses. He also gave me an anecdotal story of a Harvard football player that injured his shoulder blade as the star quarter back. When they x-rayed him, they also found out that his head was mostly filled with water and the result was a severe lack of brain tissue. However, he was a 4.0 grade point average student. I asked Dr. Olds if Peek's neurons might be more densely populated but he also dismissed this saying that neurons are huge on nutrient consumption and if they grow too closely together, they will kill each other.

    Anyone care to take a stab at this? Can anyone speculate on this?

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    My work here is dung.
  4. Makes sense to me... by Two99Point80 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Being autistic, for me, means having to analyze social situations and interactions on-the-fly. Emulating intuition, I suppose. But having to be analytical also means getting to be analytical, looking beneath the surface to gain understanding of what's going on and why. Tools to achieve this will vary depending on one's ability to process complex material, but having a sensible explanation makes it much easier for me to be cooperative, appropriately social, and so forth.

    This is a lot of work, but IME is well worth it. See the conference papers at my website for more on one person's experience of autism...

  5. Re:Huh? by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This looks like as good a place as any to mention the ecological fallacy.
    The term comes from a 1950 paper by William Robinson. For each of the 48 states in the US as of the 1930 census, he computed the literacy rate and the proportion of the population born outside the US. He showed that these two figures were associated with a positive correlation of 0.53 -- in other words, the greater the proportion of immigrants in a state, the higher its average literacy. However, when individuals are considered, the correlation was 0.11 -- immigrants were on average less literate than native citizens. Robinson showed that the positive correlation at the level of state populations was because immigrants tended to settle in states where the native population was more literate. He cautioned against deducing conclusions about individuals on the basis of population-level, or "ecological" data.
    In other words, it can be helpful and interesting to scramble up some statistics on a question for a study omelette, but we have certainly destroyed some information in the process. Ex post facto attempts to opine about the original materials will leave us with egg on the face.
    Elsewhere on Wikipedia, Einstein is on record for doubting whether the Almighty throws dice with the universe. Allow me to second that from the standpoint of refusing to fret. Do what you consider Destiny would have you do with respect to your reproduction; rejoice in any outcome.
    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  6. Re:Evolution by George+Tirebuyer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Early human tool development stayed stagnant for an amazingly long time. Could it be that the same genes that cause autism today also spawned technological innovations like Clovis points. The genes may have been a mutation so rare that until human populations increased sufficiently it would be missing entirely for generations. Perhaps the rise of civilization itself is the result of the genes remaining present in the populations in Sumeria, the Indus Valley, and China which simultaneously (compared to the rest of human history) developed.