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Asperger Syndrome Tied To Low Cortisol Levels
caffiend666 writes "According to a Health Day article, low levels of a stress hormone may be responsible for the obsession with routine and dislike for new experiences common in children with a certain type of autism. 'This study suggests that children with AS may not adjust normally to the challenge of a new environment on waking,' study researcher David Jessop, from the University of Bristol, said in the news release. 'This may affect the way they subsequently engage with the world around them.'"
Wait, What?! They can cure my Asperger's?! I DONT WANT THEM TO! I like everything the way it is! LEAVE ME ALONE! AHHHHHHHHHH
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
... to prevent AS in my own children I should make their infancy more stressful? Like run them through mazes with electrodes along the wrong routes or something?
FTFA:
But as a diagnosed asperger's sufferer myself, NONONONONONONONO! This is EXACTLY the type of wrong response we've been getting all along to this disease. No, you don't "steer the children away" from situations, you train them to find other ways to deal with the situation. And you work on research to find other ways to increase Cortisol production.
I think it would help mightily if the researchers on High Functioning Autism, actually had High Functioning Autism themselves. Then maybe we'd have suggestions that would really help in the real world.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Anyway....
I never see these studies that say they weed out child abuse. I know for a fact (sorry no cites or sites and I'm relying on personal experience here ... ) that child abuse will result in the same symptoms as Asperger's. That's what I'm wondering. You have one crowd who's looking for a biological reason and another who's looking for a behavioral.
I don't know what to say. We're complex and any studies like this needs to be taken with a grain of salt or two.
You think it is a coincidence your coworkers usually work in dank and dimly lit cubicles with no human contact? That they startle whenever anyone approaches? That they always bitch about the poor conditions at the rare and always uncomfortably awkward staff meetings, but no one ever actually attempts to change it? You're seeing it *EVERY DAY*
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Basically, you just said "maybe... maybe not".
Yup, I'm guessing that administering cortisol was beyond the scope of the experiment. We won't know the answer until someone tries it.
This is good science. It leaves the reader with more questions than it answered. That means MORE FUNDING!
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
They're just in the "zone" in their "cave" - http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/11/11/the_nerd_handbook.html
I like BSing with my coworkers as much as the next guy but lets be honest: people being social = less work getting done.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
If I'm reading them correctly, the studies being quoted (BTW, here's one of them if you have ScienceDirect) are NOT saying that Asperger's can be cured or prevented by altering a child's exposure to stress. They're saying Asperger's brains have a different neurochemical reaction to sudden changes than ordinary brains do.
1: This may (or may not) point toward changing how Asperger's kids are trained to deal with stress.
2: More interesting to me, this may point to targeted pharmaceuticals able to provide long-term remission.
3: This may just be a side effect of Asperger's, and the actual cause is somewhere else entirely.
Is Cortisol related to Prednisone? 40 mg of Prednisone made me *feel* Autistic - I couldn't look at people when they were talking, it was too overstimulating to see their lips move while I listened to their voice.
As someone who manifested many Asperger's symptoms as a child, I remember thinking all the time, "It would be obviously better if everyone did X, but they don't, because they're stupid." And you know what? None of my insights did anybody a damn bit of good. Aspies are great at pushing forward some fields (such as computing,) but they fail badly at fields that require influencing other people. RMS is only a partial exception to this.
One example: Aspies are more ethically daring basically because they don't recognize a lot of the small-scale pain they cause. It's easy for them to see the social big picture because they don't see the social small picture. They don't hesitate to call for large changes because they don't understand the cost of the social and cultural disruption that large changes cause, or they dismiss them as irrelevant. Calling for change doesn't make it happen. You need people who can make changes happen by hacking the culture. For instance, Ghandi came up with a theory of nonviolent resistance that meshed perfectly with Hindu culture, while at the same time making it open to all Indians. Then Martin Luther King, Jr. adapted ideas from Ghandi and elsewhere to a completely different cultural context.
An Aspie in MLK's place would have said, "Look, these Indian guys totally kicked ass with this approach, and I know we're black and Christian but we just need to forget about that because this stuff FUCKING WORKS. I mean, this is so OBVIOUS and I can't believe you guys are getting hung up on the fact that these ideas seem a little alien. They make perfect sense in a Hindu context, and if you're interested in that I can recommend some scriptures. If you're not going to bother understanding it, then just SHUT THE HELL UP and let the smart people talk. What the hell is wrong with you fucking dickhead morons? I give up. I can't make it any more obvious than I already have. Why don't you just go and play basketball and be cool and have sex and all that stuff that's so much more important than the FREEDOM OF OUR RACE. Idiots."
Aspie-type people make valuable contributions to society (and I have to believe this or I'd just off myself) but Aspies are impotent in the face of many important problems. Sometimes the right guy for the job is someone who is really unattractive from a geeky point of view -- like a slick, charismatic, self-aggrandizing, womanizing minister.
It's odd the amount of geeks that seem eager to be diagnosed with Aspergers... as if that excuses their perceived failings, allows them to blame it on a condition they have no control over... or perhaps it simply is a badge of being a 'true' geek.
Even worse, the popularity of Asperger's as a self-diagnosis among geeks prevents them from getting a better grasp on their problems. Many other causes can produce similar symptoms, and even when a diagnosis of Asperger's is accurate, it isn't the last word on a person's mental health. An Aspie can have other psychological problems.
For instance, I had long thought I might be an Aspie, and when I ended up in therapy, I waited to see if my therapist mentioned it. (On my first visit, I spotted a couple of books about Asperger's on her bookshelf, so I figured she would be a good check on my self-diagnosis.) After several visits she did mention that my description of my childhood experiences sounded like I could have Asperger's, and she knew an authority on Asperger's who could screen me. At the time, my health insurance wouldn't cover the screening (a couple thousand bucks,) so I basically asked, is the screening worth it? She said it would be interesting to have a more expert opinion on whether it was really Asperger's, but:
This from a therapist who had books about Asperger's on her shelf and who suggested I get screened for it without any prompting on my part. Clearly she was interested in Asperger's and knowledgable about it. She just didn't think it was that important for my further development.
Contrast that with the many geeks who (without any professional diagnosis) use Asperger's to wholly define their past experience and future potential.
I have mod-points, but I'd rather post.
I'd like to echo the sibling post and say thanks for linking - I came across that article maybe 2 months ago, and it -perfectly- mirrors my working environment and habits.
However, your off-the-cuff comment regarding productivity seems poorly timed. This current /. article cites a study that says a worker that spends a reasonable proportion of their working day browsing (~20%) is 9% more productive than a worker who grinds through the day. Maybe this is due to a mental page-out during a context switch, but it seems to clear the mind. Some people go for a smoke, though the productivity effects of that break are presumably partially from the nicotine hit, as well as the switch. Others have a 5 minute chat around the water cooler, others prefer /.. It seems that a break that gives the brain time to develop a 1000-yard stare and run the garbage cleaner helps concentration levels. Of course, if the water-cooler chats go for 3 hours, that's not helping anyone.
~/Rockwolf
February 9th, 2009 8:55pm: Slashdot becomes self-aware.