Can your brain chemistry change to become more NT-like?

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I know that most experts disagree with the idea of being "Cured" of autism, but I was. I think the concept of it is neuroplasticity, or the brain being able to alter itself? As a child I flapped my hands, was incredibly sensitive to bright lights, couldn't brush my teeth due to intense pain, had no friends, etc. etc. I was diagnosed as autistic (aspergers) by three specialists.
Now I'm 15, am in the "popular clique" or whatever, (bad as that sounds hahah) have no sensory issues whatsoever, no issues with interaction, don't stim. I'm 100% neurotypical. I have no idea what happened, but it did!

I also feel that I'm a lot more NT than when I was diagnosed, but I'm still as weird as hell. Can you explain what you find different in yourself now than then?

Haha wellll I think it'd be obvious from what I said. I don't flap my hands or stim. At my orthodontist, theres an old note on my file saying "Hypersensitive to light in eyes and touching in mouth" and that's not at all true anymore. I'm now veryyy socially adept, I go to parties all the time, lots of friends, where as I used to be socially ostracized for having no social skills at all. I used to not be able to wear socks because the pain they caused was immense- obviously not a problem anymore. I used to obsessively categorize facts on wild cats and keep them in exact folders, that kind of thing no longer holds interest for me. And I'm very conscious of pop culture, understanding humor, and I think being hygenic and presenting yourself well is very socially important. There's hundreds of more things I could list but I wont
EDIT: Not to mention that I used to toe walk to the extent that I was fitted with special weights on each ankle to keep me from doing it! :/

Last edited by MissMikkyy on 05 Apr 2012, 10:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

I feel like I'm becoming more NT-wired as I get older. Somehow, I've managed to adapt my view of the world to that of an NT, possibly due to my desire to fit in with NTs.

Why would anyone want to be NT?

Since some of you have 'become' more NT which I don't quite understand since I thought autism would be a different brain wiring, and is unlikely to reform itself to NT brain wiring. But anyways how does being neurotypical feel? I am curious.

I meant not how are you different on the outside, but what you feel changed about yourself internally?

Everybody changes as they get older. I wouldn't say I'm more NT as an adult, but I can say I've become more better at passing off as NT. Obviously there are some odd things about me that are so invisible that you can't actually pinpoint what it is, but for that reason I cannot do anything about that, but if people are descent enough they just look upon it as ''it's just the way she is''. A lot of people just think I'm quiet, passive, and loyal.

i have never improved in my fundamental consciousness of my place in the world of people.

there are lessons that i have learned that have allowed me to predict with more accuracy how people will react to my input, but it is only from my memory of what i have experienced in the past that i can avoid social clashes, rather than from intuition or instinct.

if autism was associated with psychochemistry, and it was found to be associated with it, then autism would be affected by psychopharmaceutical drugs.

many autistic people benefit with medication, but that medication does not affect the pure autism, it only ameliorates the coincident disadvantages like depression etc.

many autistic people have comorbid conditions that may be treated with medication, but there is no medicine that reduces autism in it's pure form.

i am not on medication of any kind because there are no drugs that will allow me to see the world from other peoples eyes. not even naturally occurring intracranial alterations to my brain chemistry (for whatever reason they may occur).


i have seen posts on this site before that suggest that drugs like ecstasy are beneficial to the poster, but i also know that the drugs like ecstasy only serve to make the person happier with their situation and more confident to interact with others, but those drugs do not orient their consciousness in alignment with non autistic consciousnesses i believe.

i have never felt any mental bond with anyone and i never will.

i can organize an agreement so i am not at odds with others, but i can never can never come to an "understanding" with others.

my world is a world of rules, and i have learned those rules like a musician who can not play from their "heart" learns how to read a manuscript in order to perform a piece of music.

i can not live my life "by ear". i can only follow the rules i have learned.... to get by without causing "feathers to fly".

my fundamental neural design is cast in concrete, and just as i have 2 legs and will never grow a third leg, my brain will never unravel itself and reformulate with the correct "knitting" pattern that normal people's brain have.

if you are born without eyes, then there is no drug that will help you grow eyes.

autism is organic and not functional.

i hope i am not saying things that may make some people depressed.

No. AS has little to do with brain chemistry. It is caused by lack of neural connectivity in some areas of the brain, and overconnectivity in other areas. It might become possible at some point in the future to repair the underconnectivity between the frontal lobe and the rest of the brain, perhaps with the use of stem cells, but at this point it is not an option.

So, the repetitive/obsessive-compulsive behaviors of AS have nothing to do with serotonin and other neurotransmitters? They only are from abnormal neural structures?

Well, the neurochemistry of autistics is not entirely normal either. There are unusual serotonin synthesis levels for example; abnormally high in the dentate nucleus, unusually low in other brain areas. This might contribute to common comorbid conditions such as depression and anxiety, as well as mood swings and meltdowns. However, the cause of autism is a structural, developmental neurological disorder, not just a neurochemical imbalance. The latter would be easy to medicate for.

Mood swings and meltdowns and generalized anxiety in ASDs aren't comorbid. They're part of the condition. If they are extreme, then, yes, they will result in a comorbid mood disorder and/or anxiety disorder, but often, they're ASD symptoms themselves. And yes, I agree that ASDs are both structural and neurochemical in nature. I just am arguing against the popular opinion on here that the structural abnormalities are the end-all, be-all cause.

I think the more time you spend around NTs, interacting with them the more NT-like your communication can become. It does depend a lot on how positive the interactions are though as if they are positive they will be positively reinforcing and hence will encourage you to continue. Bad interactions will make you feel down and not want to bother. So the better you can get at emulating NTness the more NT-like you will be able to become.

If I go for long periods not interacting with people it's like I lose all my NT social interaction 'skills' and have to re-learn them. After a number of positive NT interactions I can feel like I'm reaching a better understanding of them and how they operate but only a slight feel for it, not the full thing. You can get a sort of buzz from interacting with NTs and I think they get a much better buzz than us, hence they are far more encouraged to keep interacting for this buzz - it's a reward thing. It's muted or non-existant for us but can be developed more, like exercising a muscle.

So in terms of becoming more NT-like I think you can do it for the time you are actually in communication with them then you tend to revert back to your home setting of autistic.

I don't disagree that neurochemical imbalances can contribute to common symptoms of autism. I simply see the neurochemical aspects of ASDs as another symptom that is also caused by structural / organic abnormalities.

Let's take another neurological disorder, Parkinson's disease. Unlike autism, it is a degenerative disorder, but the same principle applies here. Some people will tell you that Parkinson's is caused by abnormally low dopamine levels, but the real cause is the progressive cell death of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. The lack of dopamine in some brain areas is just another link in a causal chain of symptoms that can all be traced back to an organic problem.

That's why there is no treatment for Parkinson's as of yet (or for any other neurological condition, for that matter). Dopaminergic drugs can alleviate some symptoms, but frequently cause problems such as psychosis, because other dopamine-producing areas function normally and drugs like L-dopa increase dopamine concentrations systemically. A reliable treatment with permanent results would require an organic solution, such as induction of neurogenesis in the substantia nigra. (Which might already be possible if it wasn't for crazy people who believe that embryonic stem cells have tiny souls. We might need to treat those people first).

The same can be said about autism. Drugs like SSRIs may help manage associated and comorbid symptoms like anxiety, mood swings and depression (at the cost of side effects). But in order to treat autism itself, we need to repair the missing neural connections between the frontal lobe and the rest of the cortex.