The connections in autistic brains are idiosyncratic and individualized

Each autistics' brain is distinct; non-autistics' brains are remarkably uniform.

Read the whole story

 

[Mondoman]

Fatesrider[/url]":1ahf8ibm]...
The question appears to be less about genetics than environmental factors. Genetically speaking, from what I've read, those who are autistic aren't fundamentally different than others.

Actually, we just don't know (since the brain/nervous system are so complex, and we haven't yet done whole genome sequencing of lots of ASD vs. control individuals for a proper comparison).

Fatesrider[/url]":1ahf8ibm]... But somewhere along the line, the thinking patterns alter - and no, it isn't caused by vaccines, either. If it was, the changes in thinking patterns would be similar, and they're not. .

You're right, it's not vaccines -- we've got good evidence for that. To clarify though, the genome is so complex and varies so much from person to person that different people's responses to a similar substance could vary widely, so you wouldn't necessarily expect similar changes in thinking patterns.

 

[Lily Liliaceae]

This article is funny when you take into account there's a bunch of tumblr users who keep self-misdiagnosing themselves with autism in order to appear to be more "unique" to others.

 

[Tyler X. Durden]

jphamlore[/url]":rxv3dxmp]

karadoc[/url]":rxv3dxmp]

snowcat-il[/url]":rxv3dxmp]So this means my brain is very unique and not a boring plain vanilla brain

Indeed.

I've heard it claimed that a person needs to be a bit autistic to be truly brilliant. I personally don't really like to call anyone a genius or brilliant or whatever; but I will say that the ability to 'think outside the box' and a tendency to become obsessed with certain topics are both advantages when it comes to deep thinking, discovery, invention, and artistic creation.

Nothing I have ever read about Richard Feynman indicates he had any trace of autism.

Indeed. The obsessions that come with autism can provide an edge in many applications but it doesn't follow that it is a requirement.

--- --- ---

About this concept in the article, this all isn't really surprising at all. Given what's long been understood about the atypical sensory highs/lows, some past work on investigating neural connections, and so on.

What this doesn't address yet, besides how detectable it is as say an infant or toddler, is where exactly it comes from. What's the trigger/root of why it is like this in some people. But the better we can identify the physiological differences the more readily the root can be tracked down and understood.

 

[beebee]

sprockkets[/url]":32k43mu9]

SharZee[/url]":32k43mu9]Why the differences in autistic brains?
If autistic brains have been developmentally damaged/impaired, the amount and impact of damage would vary and cause unique results. I propose that radiofrequency radiation is one immensely important factor in the biological impacts/damage of the brain, from autism to Alzheimer's and other brain-damaged conditions.

Evidence is in the science, but the popularity of wireless means you will not hear about it, since no precautions are being recommended by regulators. This is nothing new, think asbestos, lead paint and tobacco... To sample the science showing this kind of damage from radiofrequency/microwaves FAR BELOW what is allowed, please view Dr. Erica Mallery-Blythe's 2014 talk on children and emr at youtube. See also Dr. Leif Salford's presentation there on his long-term work on blood brain barrier and radiofrequency damage, which causes leaking. For consumer friendly site, see BabySafe Project. And for cutting edge science showing results in mice of very brief wifi exposure see at Medical Symposium at C4ST the informal study by Dr. Hugh Taylor of Yale.

Those charged with protecting lives are more interested in innovations, fun and profit. The brain damage has only just begun. FCC is allowing DAS antennas (small cellular antennas) to build out wireless infrastructure quicker EVERYWHERE. This means more damage to the public, esp. children and all future generations. Once DNA is damaged it impacts all generations.

Some believe that infertility and genetic damage is intended to cut back human populations. Who knows? It certainly appears that the utter lies of regulatory officials and industry will result plenty of harm to individuals and the human species, in general.

Wired, cable and fiber allow access that is 100% SAFE. Why aren't officials building these out? Whatever the reason, the results spell disaster.

I can assure you that 30 something years ago, when there were no cell signals, wifi signals, and about less than 10 channels of tv, didn't stop me from having a form of AS.

To play devil's advocate, autism has been on the rise, and so has RF smog. However correlation is not causation. Since there is no definitive test for autism, the definition for the diagnosis has broadened.

Without drifting off topic too far, you will not eliminate RF smog. You can limit your dose. For the average person, their RF exposure is due to cell phones. A wired or bluetooth headset reduced your exposure by a few orders or magnitude. This boils down to the risk management notion of the precautionary principle.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

Nobody has proven cell phones are dangerous. But the nature of the experiment is you can't prove they are safe.

I average about two hours a day with a bluetooth headset in my ear and I'm not concerned.

 

[NoTimeForTrolls]

In my experience of being a person in a subset of ASD, and doing volunteer work with other people with ASD, none of the people I have met are "brilliant", but are definitely not "mentally impaired" either. We have traits that would be disruptive to most normal people, but if we understand those peculiarities, we can leverage most of them in certain situations in ways that normal people can't replicate.

In my own case, it is the preoccupation with problem solving, a single minded obsession with solving a problem, that has benefited me in my professional life, both in military and civilian work, first in rescue work, then in IT and computers, software and communications. Along with the compulsive need to solve problems goes an insatiable desire for trivial facts dealing with the problem at hand. The down side of all this is the tendency to regard everything as a problem to be solved and an inability to prioritize items needing attention Unless one recognizes the impulsive effect of Aspergers, it is too easy to get bogged down on unimportant (or less important) problems when more important matters need attention.

There is much more to ASD subset conditions than the stereotypical ones. Aspergers, for instance, can also affect visual processing and perception of time and space. At times of extreme stress or concentration, Aspies can see time as a series of individual freeze frames or perceive almost imperceptible motion within their field of view. A triviality, unless it benefits someone in a military or professional field, as it did in my case (aerial rescue).

Without a doubt, for young people with ASD, the biggest problem is learning to deal with a condition and getting help. The second biggest problem is the ignorance of other people, resulting in intolerance, impatience, prejudice and worst of all, bullying. Even adults, who apparently never grew out of the bully stage, can be hostile, demeaning and insulting. For whatever reason, people who wouldn't snipe or ridicule a person who is deaf or blind, feel it is acceptable to make fun of people with autism or other "crazy, mental" conditions. Trying to help others dealing with ASD learn to handle the inhumanity of other humans is one of the hardest, but most rewarding aspects of my volunteer work.

 

[giltwist]

Theala Sildorian[/url]":3ijuod7c]

giltwist[/url]":3ijuod7c]

jphamlore[/url]":3ijuod7c]

karadoc[/url]":3ijuod7c]

snowcat-il[/url]":3ijuod7c]So this means my brain is very unique and not a boring plain vanilla brain

Indeed.

I've heard it claimed that a person needs to be a bit autistic to be truly brilliant. I personally don't really like to call anyone a genius or brilliant or whatever; but I will say that the ability to 'think outside the box' and a tendency to become obsessed with certain topics are both advantages when it comes to deep thinking, discovery, invention, and artistic creation.

Nothing I have ever read about Richard Feynman indicates he had any trace of autism.

When I was in grad school, I had a friend in the psychology department specializing in schizophrenia. He argued that all "mental illness" is actually a vital coping mechanism just overused or underused. So for example, paranoia is the vital coping mechanism of distrust of other taken to the extreme. Likewise, he opined that schizophrenia and genius both share the trait of "creates dramatically different chains of cause-effect reasoning than normal people." The difference between them, according to him, is that a person with schizophrenia fails to engage in "source monitoring" (which is determining the origin of an idea) which led to making larger and less reliable intuitive leaps compared to a genius. I suppose the same could be true of autism. Both the autistic and genius mind need to be able to make idiosyncratic neural connections (which I believe is formally called neuroplasticity), but perhaps where the genius has the dial set to 8, the autistic has set to 11.

His idea grossly oversimplifies what goes on with the diseases you mention. I wonder . . . did your friend graduate?

Or maybe he was putting things in terms that someone who wasn't getting a Ph.D. in psychology would understand.

 

[TrellyTB]

NoTimeForTrolls[/url]":31qxfsgz]In my experience of being a person in a subset of ASD, and doing volunteer work with other people with ASD, none of the people I have met are "brilliant", but are definitely not "mentally impaired" either.

Work in the tech field, you will quickly change your mind.

Autism runs in my family. Those that have it tend to be seen as unusually smart. I don't see it at all as a negative, and if it could be "cured" they can just leave me out of treatment.

But, it is so very random. It's a total crap shoot as to what advantages and disadvantages there are.

I was diagnosed as an adult, but it's pretty clear I was autistic since early childhood. I had few social skills, and people think of that as a huge negative. I most certainly don't. It felt to me like talking, explaining, communicating was painfully slow and that by the time the gabbing went back and forth a couple of times I was thinking of something completely different. So, I disconnected and people thought I was either aloof or retarded. But, that didn't matter much to me since my inner world was very vibrant and moved along at whatever pace I liked.

Unlike others said above, I definitely get along better with others with autism. We just click very quickly, seem to bypass all the social unpleasantries of small talk, and get to the meat and potatoes of what interests us. Then we walk away half way through a conversation, and never seem to hold a grudge (assuming any of us noticed!).

I also love science, and finding out why I am the way I am. Not for a cure, just out of interest, and the findings of this study wouldn't surprise me if they are true.

 

[Theala Sildorian]

Leid[/url]":z2b5lzbo]

Theala Sildorian[/url]":z2b5lzbo]

systemsready[/url]":z2b5lzbo]Huh. Does this possibly explain why I can't even fit in among other autistic people?

Everyone, from my mom to my psychiatrist to my therapist, magically expects me to feel better when I'm around other neuroatypical people...yet I find it just as hard to make friends with them as I do with "normal" people...they feel just as fundamentally different from me.

Autism is in large part a communication disorder.

Now if your ability to communicate (whether to send, receive, or both) is impaired with normal people, why on God's green earth would anyone expect things to be different with other people with communication disorders, be it autism or anything else!

:facepalm:

I'm pretty sure people just think: "Mental and physical disabilities A, B and C benefit from support groups, therefore so will mental disability D." My experience has been much like systemready's, that that logic really doesn't apply to autism spectrum disorders. People with autism have drastically different levels of social impairment and overall function; putting them together based solely only the autism diagnosis isn't going to result in a group with many commonalities.

For example, I usually converse better with more outgoing, i.e non-autistic, people. They do the heavy lifting of initiating and keeping things going so that I don't have to.

I'm not sure why this particular post is being downvoted. The only thing I can think of is that stating that autism is a communication disorder may be misleading, depending on how that statement is interpreted. Autism doesn't necessarily mean you talk and write like a fictional cave man; high functioning autistic people can be as clear and eloquent as anyone else in the right environment.

I might have done better to say ASD's. I have Asperger's; my issues are social communication. I cannot read the social cues "normal" people take for granted. It makes interacting with people who don't know me very difficult.

Certainly mental retardation is a huge part of what we think of as autism, but with or without that mental retardation, people with autism internalize everything to the point where contact with the outside world is actually painful for them: hence the reactions when their routine is disrupted, they get frustrated, or are overstimulated.

 

[Theala Sildorian]

giltwist[/url]":11y2378j]

Theala Sildorian[/url]":11y2378j]

giltwist[/url]":11y2378j]

jphamlore[/url]":11y2378j]

karadoc[/url]":11y2378j]

snowcat-il[/url]":11y2378j]So this means my brain is very unique and not a boring plain vanilla brain

Indeed.

I've heard it claimed that a person needs to be a bit autistic to be truly brilliant. I personally don't really like to call anyone a genius or brilliant or whatever; but I will say that the ability to 'think outside the box' and a tendency to become obsessed with certain topics are both advantages when it comes to deep thinking, discovery, invention, and artistic creation.

Nothing I have ever read about Richard Feynman indicates he had any trace of autism.

When I was in grad school, I had a friend in the psychology department specializing in schizophrenia. He argued that all "mental illness" is actually a vital coping mechanism just overused or underused. So for example, paranoia is the vital coping mechanism of distrust of other taken to the extreme. Likewise, he opined that schizophrenia and genius both share the trait of "creates dramatically different chains of cause-effect reasoning than normal people." The difference between them, according to him, is that a person with schizophrenia fails to engage in "source monitoring" (which is determining the origin of an idea) which led to making larger and less reliable intuitive leaps compared to a genius. I suppose the same could be true of autism. Both the autistic and genius mind need to be able to make idiosyncratic neural connections (which I believe is formally called neuroplasticity), but perhaps where the genius has the dial set to 8, the autistic has set to 11.

His idea grossly oversimplifies what goes on with the diseases you mention. I wonder . . . did your friend graduate?

Or maybe he was putting things in terms that someone who wasn't getting a Ph.D. in psychology would understand.

Translation: he was BSing.

Look, I work in health care, and I work with people with mental illnesses and developmental disorders. I have never heard this kind of theory in my life, and certainly not from my friend who actually has a PhD in psychology and actually works with autistic kids.

But you know, there's an easy way to settle this.

What publication has your friend done on this theory?

 

[angrydurf]

Mondoman[/url]":qv6e3rl4]I'm confused by the story's final paragraph. The author says:

An intriguing possibility is that, because neural connections are shaped by the routine behaviors and experiences that we have every day, people with ASD each exhibit idiosyncratic connectivity patterns in their brains because they each experience the world and interact with their environment in an idiosyncratic way.

The author seems to be assuming that neural connections are shaped ONLY by the routine behaviors (and not, for example, by gene products that affect neuronal "pathfinding"), and thus suggesting that ASD might be *caused* by idiosyncratic behaviors and experiences.
Given the range of behaviors of children, this seems farfetched -- is there any evidence for this?

Well that is why the study looks at regional interconnects rather than specific interconnects. Basically while there may be significant variations from individual to individual in the exact neural pathway that looks at a red wall and say it's red, almost all Neurotypical people will light up connections between the same regions of the brain when asked to name the color of a series of walls.

The individual connections are based on their unique experiences with learning colors, the overall trend is that identifying colors uses the same regions of the brain and requires interconnects between them. Thus looking at many Nerotypical adults reveals similar clustering of high and low connectivity. The thinking in the final paragraph is that if the ways in which ASD patients experiance and interact is unique to the individual it would explain unique pathing.

It is likely true but less likely to be due to an underlying physiological or biochemical cause of Autism than because Autism is diagnosed symptomatically. There are a wide range of behaviors that get lumped into Autism with varied effect on the individuals ability to function. It is highly unlikely that so broad a set of symptoms has a single underlying cause.

 

[Ralf The Dog]

beebee[/url]":2lwkd98u]This would be an interesting test to run on autistic savants. Do those with the same skills have the same wiring?

And am I the only person here that wants one of these plots for my brain? The image is beyond fascinating.

Honestly, I would be terrified to see the results.

 

[Ralf The Dog]

First off, who is to say an ASD is developmentally damaged or impaired. In some cases they may be. In many cases, non ASD people are damaged. The fact, a person functions differently than you does not make them impaired.

Secondly, low power RF energy can do no more damage to a persons brain or their DNA than a candle at the far end of a football field.

SharZee[/url]":20wf9g0t]Why the differences in autistic brains?
If autistic brains have been developmentally damaged/impaired, the amount and impact of damage would vary and cause unique results. I propose that radiofrequency radiation is one immensely important factor in the biological impacts/damage of the brain, from autism to Alzheimer's and other brain-damaged conditions.

Evidence is in the science, but the popularity of wireless means you will not hear about it, since no precautions are being recommended by regulators. This is nothing new, think asbestos, lead paint and tobacco... To sample the science showing this kind of damage from radiofrequency/microwaves FAR BELOW what is allowed, please view Dr. Erica Mallery-Blythe's 2014 talk on children and emr at youtube. See also Dr. Leif Salford's presentation there on his long-term work on blood brain barrier and radiofrequency damage, which causes leaking. For consumer friendly site, see BabySafe Project. And for cutting edge science showing results in mice of very brief wifi exposure see at Medical Symposium at C4ST the informal study by Dr. Hugh Taylor of Yale.

Those charged with protecting lives are more interested in innovations, fun and profit. The brain damage has only just begun. FCC is allowing DAS antennas (small cellular antennas) to build out wireless infrastructure quicker EVERYWHERE. This means more damage to the public, esp. children and all future generations. Once DNA is damaged it impacts all generations.

Some believe that infertility and genetic damage is intended to cut back human populations. Who knows? It certainly appears that the utter lies of regulatory officials and industry will result plenty of harm to individuals and the human species, in general.

Wired, cable and fiber allow access that is 100% SAFE. Why aren't officials building these out? Whatever the reason, the results spell disaster.

 

[Mondoman]

angrydurf[/url]":gy4m2d35]... There are a wide range of behaviors that get lumped into Autism with varied effect on the individuals ability to function. It is highly unlikely that so broad a set of symptoms has a single underlying cause.

And yet, another broad set of symptoms (the different types of cancer) is coming to be understood as type-specific defects + defects in an underlying set of common pathways affecting cell growth.

There seem to be lots of hypotheses about ASD, and interesting personal stories from those affected, but a frustrating lack of real evidence at the molecular level. What you write sounds plausible, but there are certainly plenty of "neurotypical" outliers revealed by fMRI, from what I understand, and the big issue remains: *why* certain areas of the brain seem to be associated with certain functions.

The idea that the brain is composed of specialized modules (vs. a tabula rasa) is attractive, and we are beginning to learn about genes that are responsible for establishing connections between certain groups of neurons at certain times during development. Personally, I believe (without much evidence) that ASD will turn out to be a group of defects in specific groups of connections in the brain, defects that might be caused by defective genes, by injury, or even occasional random errors in development.

 

[Ralf The Dog]

I don't know if I am ASD. In all probability, I am not. I do know, I am better at reading others than most people. I also know, when I am reading others reactions to myself, I always read those reactions as hostile. This does tend to have a negative effect on dating. (If you think, the girl you are talking to is revolted by you, you tend to be less likely to ask her out on a date.)

My current theory, I am not ASD, I am just messed up.

 

[Mondoman]

Ralf The Dog[/url]":855yv5wb]First off, who is to say an ASD is developmentally damaged or impaired....

In the end, it's natural selection that decides. The more offspring you successfully raise, the greater your "fitness" (in a technical sense).

 

[Mondoman]

Ralf The Dog[/url]":wfa5aqqe]...
My current theory, I am not ASD, I am just messed up.

Dude, you're a dog!

 

[Ralf The Dog]

Mondoman[/url]":4h73f3tn]

Ralf The Dog[/url]":4h73f3tn]First off, who is to say an ASD is developmentally damaged or impaired....

In the end, it's natural selection that decides. The more offspring you successfully raise, the greater your "fitness" (in a technical sense).

Not completely true. If you don't have children, but your actions result in your brothers, sisters and others with related DNA passing on their DNA, you are by proxy genetically successful. Lets say, you dive on a live grenade, saving your brother and your brother has 12 kids, Darwin would say, you did a good job, even if you never have one child.

 

[matthieub]

I don't have access to the article, but are you sure it is fMRI that was used, and not dMRI (diffusion MRI)? fMRI can only tell you about activity in the brain, whereas dMRI can tell you the local direction of the axons.

 

[Pichu0102]

Oh no, this will set back treatment research further. Common symptoms with completely different brain wiring per subject? That sound was a collective bunch of scientists popping open another beer to drown out the agony of their work going down the drain.

As for those of us with autism, this could explain why it's hard to find a good treatment that works for all of us. On the bad side, this explains why it's hard to find a good treatment that works for all of us. Christ, the despair never ends...

 

[BioTurboNick]

Pichu0102[/url]":2vwahi6n]Oh no, this will set back treatment research further. Common symptoms with completely different brain wiring per subject? That sound was a collective bunch of scientists popping open another beer to drown out the agony of their work going down the drain.

As for those of us with autism, this could explain why it's hard to find a good treatment that works for all of us. On the bad side, this explains why it's hard to find a good treatment that works for all of us. Christ, the despair never ends...

Although it isn't down the drain. Useful things come out of knowledge we didn't expect.

 

[jdale]

Pichu0102[/url]":3sscftd9]Oh no, this will set back treatment research further. Common symptoms with completely different brain wiring per subject? That sound was a collective bunch of scientists popping open another beer to drown out the agony of their work going down the drain.

As for those of us with autism, this could explain why it's hard to find a good treatment that works for all of us. On the bad side, this explains why it's hard to find a good treatment that works for all of us. Christ, the despair never ends...

Inconsistent wiring doesn't necessarily mean that there can't be a consistent cause. People who get lost take many different routes, but you could say the reason is consistently because they don't know where they are going.

That said, I think the evidence is already pretty clear that, whatever the cause(s) of ASD are, there are multiple interacting factors. This doesn't make that any worse.

 

[gerryq]

Theala Sildorian[/url]":4bl3yvc4]

SharZee[/url]":4bl3yvc4]Why the differences in autistic brains?
If autistic brains have been developmentally damaged/impaired, the amount and impact of damage would vary and cause unique results. I propose that radiofrequency radiation is one immensely important factor in the biological impacts/damage of the brain, from autism to Alzheimer's and other brain-damaged conditions.

<snip paranoid rant with no evidence to support it>

Wired, cable and fiber allow access that is 100% SAFE. Why aren't officials building these out? Whatever the reason, the results spell disaster.

Come here. Sit down. I've got your tinfoil hat all ready for you.

Given his hypotheses, he probably already has one - and tinfoil underpants too!

 

[RolandL]

So too much or too little connectivity has a negative impact on social function. I have to wonder what this means for Artificial Intelligence. AI would have "too many" connections in ALL areas. So my guess is that super-intelligence is either not possible or not social, probably the latter. I leave the consequences of that to your imagination, and to Hollywood.

 

[BioTurboNick]

RolandL[/url]":czjdclut]So too much or too little connectivity has a negative impact on social function. I have to wonder what this means for Artificial Intelligence. AI would have "too many" connections in ALL areas. So my guess is that super-intelligence is either not possible or not social, probably the latter. I leave the consequences of that to your imagination, and to Hollywood.

Why would AI necessarily have too many connections?

 

[Theala Sildorian]

RolandL[/url]":r6u1fotj]So too much or too little connectivity has a negative impact on social function. I have to wonder what this means for Artificial Intelligence. AI would have "too many" connections in ALL areas. So my guess is that super-intelligence is either not possible or not social, probably the latter. I leave the consequences of that to your imagination, and to Hollywood.

Well, we saw what happened to Lucy . . . .

 

[Midnitte]

An intriguing possibility is that, because neural connections are shaped by the routine behaviors and experiences that we have every day, people with ASD each exhibit idiosyncratic connectivity patterns in their brains because they each experience the world and interact with their environment in an idiosyncratic way. Their idiosyncratic behaviors prevent them from engaging in the typical interactions that create typical brain scans.

I feel like this is probably the case, and because autistics have less experience in social behavior, its very likely that such connections that strengthen in response to it would be weaker.

Perhaps this could be used a measure of success for therapies though? If we can strengthen those connections, doesn't it seem likely that symptoms of autism would be lessened?

 

[Midnitte]

Ralf The Dog[/url]":1vzshwxj]

Mondoman[/url]":1vzshwxj]

Ralf The Dog[/url]":1vzshwxj]First off, who is to say an ASD is developmentally damaged or impaired....

In the end, it's natural selection that decides. The more offspring you successfully raise, the greater your "fitness" (in a technical sense).

Not completely true. If you don't have children, but your actions result in your brothers, sisters and others with related DNA passing on their DNA, you are by proxy genetically successful. Lets say, you dive on a live grenade, saving your brother and your brother has 12 kids, Darwin would say, you did a good job, even if you never have one child.

From reading The Selfish Gene, this seems like the reason people are so altruistic - specially in an age (I.e. the past) where you were very likely to live near people (I.e. relatives) who shared your genes.

 

[xen2xen1]

As a computer person the metaphor that comes to mind is that processing power is increased to some things (see the search and rescue guy above) and decreased to some things (social cues). Gross oversimplification, but sounds generally right.

 

[Anticrawl]

As someone diagnosed with ASD, I'd be willing to get scanned. I would have loved to be scanned before and after college however. When I entered college I made a huge effort to take communication courses, theater courses and so on each semester of my tenure to help me learn to act and "feel" like everyone else. I know I'll never be able to express emotion and tone the same as everyone else, but I feel like I made an exponential leap during my studies. Now I can speak with everyone without feeling too out of place and speak to most topics.

In fact I think I learned more from those classes than I ever did in my major, and am 100% positive those courses are what made me a professional success rather than structured CS courses.

EDIT: That said they were easily the most stressful and often-times among the most traumatic experiences I've had. Specifically the public speaking and theater classes. But I toughed it out and am better for it.

 

[Veritas super omens]

beebee[/url]":258n0wtd]

sprockkets[/url]":258n0wtd]

SharZee[/url]":258n0wtd]Why the differences in autistic brains?
If autistic brains have been developmentally damaged/impaired, the amount and impact of damage would vary and cause unique results. I propose that radiofrequency radiation is one immensely important factor in the biological impacts/damage of the brain, from autism to Alzheimer's and other brain-damaged conditions.

Evidence is in the science, but the popularity of wireless means you will not hear about it, since no precautions are being recommended by regulators. This is nothing new, think asbestos, lead paint and tobacco... To sample the science showing this kind of damage from radiofrequency/microwaves FAR BELOW what is allowed, please view Dr. Erica Mallery-Blythe's 2014 talk on children and emr at youtube. See also Dr. Leif Salford's presentation there on his long-term work on blood brain barrier and radiofrequency damage, which causes leaking. For consumer friendly site, see BabySafe Project. And for cutting edge science showing results in mice of very brief wifi exposure see at Medical Symposium at C4ST the informal study by Dr. Hugh Taylor of Yale.

Those charged with protecting lives are more interested in innovations, fun and profit. The brain damage has only just begun. FCC is allowing DAS antennas (small cellular antennas) to build out wireless infrastructure quicker EVERYWHERE. This means more damage to the public, esp. children and all future generations. Once DNA is damaged it impacts all generations.

Some believe that infertility and genetic damage is intended to cut back human populations. Who knows? It certainly appears that the utter lies of regulatory officials and industry will result plenty of harm to individuals and the human species, in general.

Wired, cable and fiber allow access that is 100% SAFE. Why aren't officials building these out? Whatever the reason, the results spell disaster.

I can assure you that 30 something years ago, when there were no cell signals, wifi signals, and about less than 10 channels of tv, didn't stop me from having a form of AS.

To play devil's advocate, autism has been on the rise, and so has RF smog. However correlation is not causation. Since there is no definitive test for autism, the definition for the diagnosis has broadened.

Without drifting off topic too far, you will not eliminate RF smog. You can limit your dose. For the average person, their RF exposure is due to cell phones. A wired or bluetooth headset reduced your exposure by a few orders or magnitude. This boils down to the risk management notion of the precautionary principle.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

Nobody has proven cell phones are dangerous. But the nature of the experiment is you can't prove they are safe.

I average about two hours a day with a bluetooth headset in my ear and I'm not concerned.

The NHTSA would clearly argue that cell phones ARE dangerous. Just coming back to work from lunch I was nearly in an automotive accident caused by an idiot using a cell phone while driving. Radio frequency dangers? The carrier wave does not have enough energy to cause any significant interaction with tissue.

 

[Veritas super omens]

I am totally intrigued by autism and brain function studies in general. Savants, whether congenital or acquired, certainly merit more study.

 

[knbgnu]

Midnitte[/url]":1w65ucc4]

An intriguing possibility is that, because neural connections are shaped by the routine behaviors and experiences that we have every day, people with ASD each exhibit idiosyncratic connectivity patterns in their brains because they each experience the world and interact with their environment in an idiosyncratic way. Their idiosyncratic behaviors prevent them from engaging in the typical interactions that create typical brain scans.

I feel like this is probably the case, and because autistics have less experience in social behavior, its very likely that such connections that strengthen in response to it would be weaker.

Perhaps this could be used a measure of success for therapies though? If we can strengthen those connections, doesn't it seem likely that symptoms of autism would be lessened?

There's also the possibility that idiosyncratic brains are the 'normal' baseline, and that 'neurotypical' brains have a series of adaptions that allow them to or make them conform. If the altered brains became dominant, then they become considered normal, and thus abnormal is defined by the lack of those adaptations. This would be similar to how 'lactose intolerant' is considered abnormal in the West despite not being able to process lactose as an adult being the norm by far in mammals and by a pretty decent margin even in humans.