They have proved that ASD is NOT - repeat NOT genetic.

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Well, I hate to say this but I since I had the regressive form of autism, which means I suddenly stopped talking and lost my skills at age 2 1/2, a study conducted that those with regressive autism have a defect a Chromosome 21. It is NOT a trismony nor a monosmy. The mutation is INSIDE the genes of Chromosome 21. This is also the reason why Down Syndrome patitents are more likely to get autism than the general population. And that gene is most likely the N6ANTI gene. This mutated message gene, which I believe is the likely cause of regressive autism, is evidently responsible for Down Syndrome Disintegrative Disorder. Down Syndrome Disintegrative Disorder or DSDD causes those who developed with only Down Syndrome, to regress as preteens and young teenagers in kind of the same way I regressed when I was 2 years old. This is the source why and read the video too:http://www.annas-angels.org/research-study/down-syndrome-disintegrative-disorder-possible-hashimotos-encephalopathy/

How is it not genetic? It clearly runs in my family because my dad has it, my grandmother on his side has traits of it, and I'm pretty certain my grandfather on my mom's side has some traits as well.

I believe that ASDs result as the culmination of a perfect storm- say-
Genetic predisposition + a family history of depressive illness+ prematurity, or poor maternal health during pregnancy, or too-close birth-spacing, or infantile distress or disease.

In my family I have two neurotypical older sisters. One is three years older, the other is 18 months older. The oldest has no evidence of depressive illness, no evidence of ASDs, no inherited health defects. The next oldest has a few health issues and has had one episode of major depression. I (the unfortunate last one) was born with pneumonia, have a laundry list of physical health issues, motor deficits, have had three episodes of major depression, and am HFA.

My maternal grandfather died in an insane asylum. My mother is bi-polar. My paternal grandfather was most likely on the spectrum and had the same motor deficits I do.

My son, granddaughter and all of my nieces and nephews are neurotypical- but all of them were born healthy- with plenty of space between them- and had few if any childhood illnesses.

So from my own example it might be worth a look to see how many people with HFA or other ASDs have relatives on the spectrum, and who may have been born premature, and/or too soon after the previous sibling(s,) or who had severe illnesses in infancy.

I'll bet there is a connection that involves multiple factors- the perfect storm- for most people on the spectrum. I know that some people are on the spectrum and have none of those factors- but genetics and the interplay of environment is not an exact science. If it were we could predict how everyone would turn out, and what fun would that be?

Why is it not genetic?

If you have a genetic condition - then if you have the gene - you have the condition.
But in this case - if you have the gene - you might or might not have the condition.

Again - if it is something like a cancer - then it is specific to the way the body responds to cancer. ASD is not restricted to one type of brain centre but any one of multiple brain centres.

The third part is treatment. In normal failure of a cognitive centre - the treatment is well documented. You work our which part of the brain is not working. Your goal is to cause that area of the brain to be exercised. You take into account that if the task is too hard - the brain will devise a way to use "another part of the brain" to take over - which you do not want to do.
You create an exercise - and this causes the damaged area of the brain to work - which pumps in the blood - and encourages the formation of neurons. The same exercise also causes the new neurons to become part of the thought process as it trains them to do the task.
Eventually the task becomes mundane so that the blood no longer flows - so you increase the difficulty of the exercise ...
Eventually, this technique causes you to rebuild your own brain.

It does not work with ASD.

If it is something learned - then is is the way the brain has learned to process its thoughts.
An example - kinaesthetic loss as a cognitive problem (above) means parts of your brain does not work and your ability to know where your left or right hand are is not intuitive and you have to look.
But if you have a normal kinaesthetic awareness and program your brain to stop using it - you still know where your hand is - but you do not use that knowledge in further brain processes like balancing the body as you move. You shut down the link between that art of the brain and others. Or turn it back on again.

Comparing the two - cognitive problems take on average three - four years to correct. Programming takes minutes. or seconds.

What we have is two ideas.
One is the idea that "there is something wrong with the hardware of the brain." and they cannot find it - nor can they treat it.
The other is "Because something is wrong somewhere in the brain - we program the brain in such a way to avoid using the damaged part."

The damage itself could be anywhere - but the response to the damage is the same in all cases - which is why we are both so diverse, and also so ... similar.

Which of the two fits?
Exactly.

When you change a model - you do not change the problem - you change the way you THINK about the problem.

It is like changing the label on the outside of the container.
Before the container read "Nature.nurture."
Now the container says "Genetic hardware - software programming - external events."

I have not asked which is the right answer for ASD.

I asked about the container.
That is all a theoretician does.
Change the way we are allowed to think about the problems - and possibly (if we get the container right) - what was impossible becomes possible.

BTW - I ask the same question about my new model (hardware/software/external situation) as I did about the former theory - nature/nurture.
I have identified THREE components which effect the way we develop. Who says there are only three?

This.

Still genetic yes, but ~77% biochemical.

I always thought it was genetic. There's an awful lot of parents on the spectrum here who have one or more kids that are somewhere on the spectrum too. Some have three kids on the spectrum. I don't think that's a coincidence. That's enough proof for me that Autism must be passed down through genes.

And yet some families don't seem to have a trace of Autism, or may have had Autism hundreds of years ago but just suddenly fizzled out and then for the past 50-100 years or so, every child in the particular family that has been born are all 100% NTs. So I believe genetics play a big role in it, I don't care what anyone says.

Saying that though, I'm not sure if other disabilities like Down's Syndrome or Fragile-X are genetic in families, and if families with those sorts of conditions also increase risk of having Autistic genes too.

IF you removed the "ASD" condition - you would then have "a genetic problem in the brain."

The genetic problem in the brain might be any one of hundreds of known conditions.
You would not find ONE genetic problem but rather HUNDREDS of genetic problem - none of them named ASD.
You would move the category (label) that a human has from ASD into fragile-x or Down's syndrome or whatever.

The genetic condition remains. Nobody says there is not genetics involved. It says that the ASD component is not "of itself" the condition.

The opposite of ASD is not NT - it is the specific genetic problem which the baby tried to program to escape.

More - some of these are not genetic problems - but are actually useful adaptions. People think that because some of these adaptions have a few negative side effects - that they are bad. Not necessarily. I am rather hopeful some are very positive indications of the changes in the way the brain works - and herald a new use of the brain.

And as everyone - including me notices - the ASD "escape" is in itself -a very useful skill. The intense focus - the tunnel vision.
Most people would not change if they could. Mainly because of this special way of thinking.

Besides which - nobody has yet proved that this theory is accurate.
it is ... possible.
But you cannot test anything until you have a model and a theory.

I am presenting a new model.
Not the answers.

No. Your premise is erroneous.

Exactly. This is why the original post is so confusing for those of us who follow the field of genetics. 77% is a very strong correlation.

What we are beginning to understand is that living beings are not so simple as a computer who's genes are punched into a body like punch cards in an old style computer. Genes can be turned on or off. They can express in different ways according to environment or possibly random chance. A really interesting development is understanding how the stress experienced by one generation can affect how genes are expressed for generations afterwards. For example, your grandparents being hungry during the great depression can lead to obesity in your generation.

I come from a family where everyone on one side has similar problems to mine. The only one who "escaped" our strong aspie-type genes is my brother, who is so very thoroughly NT. (I love him anyway.) There is clearly a genetic link here. We all actually had a fairly good developmental environment. We all had good nutrition and a suberban upbringing. My father and his brothers, and all of my cousins, went to private schools where they got extra attention. (I was stuck in public school's special education, its a long, bitter story. )

I have tracked down the TED talk which sparked the rest.

http://www.ted.com/talks/wendy_chung_au ... anguage=en

It is where the 77% figure came from.

There was a follow up discussion on the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) about nature versus nurture.
They ... WAFFLED. Some went into "oh the subtleties of the nurture and the environment" and it was just them saying in words of distraction - we cannot explain it but we are thinking hard about how to reconcile the facts with the theory.

There is NOTHING I have said that the experts have not also said.
77% in identical twins is inexplicable.

If you want another take - try "The Austistic brain by Temple Grandin."
She takes the genetic route but gives more information on the studies. Her approach is the random mutation route ... to explain the fact identical twins are not identical.

me - I look for contradictions.
When there is a contradiction - the theory is wrong.
When the theory is wrong I have trained myself to say "Yahoo - there is something wrong - we can change things - we can change the way we look at the universe - we will see things we have never seen before!

So instead of trying to reconcile facts to theory - I go looking for other theories.
It has been so ... rewarding - to go look for other theories and other ideas.
To walk the path that others have not walked.
To find the bloom in the desert that nobody else has seen.

Heck my LIFE as an aspie is to do this very thing.
Except I have extended it into theories.

Relax - I have changed a two sentence theory nature versus nurture - to a three sentence theory.
The sun still rises in the east, still sets in the west.
And genetics continues as before and the psychologists continue as before.
It does not change genetics.
It does not change the nurture.

But it opens an entirely NEW field of science.
Now - that is actually a dastardly road.
You end up changing evolution - and throw out the "mechanism" for evolution given Survival of the fittest doesnt cut it.

You have to find the link between genetics and learning. It shocked me because it turns out DNA is rather akin to the bios on computers. It not only sets up the self creating hardware in the brain - it also sets up the desires which cause us to self program each and every area of the brain.

You have to go sideways into neuroplasticity to find how to change the brain.
It has been a really interesting little journey of discovery.

All because I changed a theory from two lines into three.

First question: why are identical twins not 100% identical, and in fact quite different?

Second question: who would rather develop a good feel for how much is nature and how much nurture, or for what impact society has on biology and biology on society, an NT or an aspie?

BTW
a) I am terribly sorry for all aspies who crave for exact figures ,
b) they are never going to be satisfied with "good feel"-s
c) a good feel is quite something
d) a good feel is great.

77% seems like a pretty strong correlation to me as well

Why are identical twins not identical?
Don't know. Nobody does.

This is not a cop out - the entire process of changing from sperm and egg into a human is so fraught with variables along the way that we can only find some and comment on them. We will miss others.

The first is that there is the genetics of the sperm and eggs. DNA has to be number one.
The second - that identical twins have distinct characteristics - and so they tried to find twins separated at birth. In different environments - you could see their similarities and their differences.
That was as far as nature and nurture got.

Still within the model - there was a study of cases here one twin was bullied and the other not. They found profound changes to the way that the brain responded to stimuli - and found it was also an inheritable characteristic.
Knowing that the DNA we were born with is not the DNA we will pass on is interesting - especially as some of the things which influence "the differences" are physical and some are mental.
A little factoid which has me thinking furiously and it does not quite fit into my mental maps.

We have also things like different gut bacterium, different positions in the womb - different exposure to light - different nutrients.

You also have some characteristics which are seemingly outside of these genetics - I mentioned some of them. Left or right handed, left or right footed - some mental diseases - sexual orientation ... and these are not inheritable.

Outside of the nature and nurture model you have to go to things like fuzzy logic to try to understand how the brain programs itself as fuzzy logic is based upon the brain.

If you wire up a fuzzy logic to do a task - it will self program so as to do the task. It has randomness, internal feedback and correction - just like a human brain. It will forge "a path" to succeed.
But if you did the entire task again - the second computer fuzzy logic which would also succeed would have a different path to the first.

No two twins CAN program their brains in the same way. Even if everything was "perfectly equal" before that time (and no - that is never the case, but close enough for now). They might have similar strengths - similar interests - similar thought patterns - but they have to be different.

And that is already known. Never thought about - but known.

It is possible that those things I mentioned as "outside" are in the realm of brain programming. Some are - I have changed them. Especially right and left handed ... essential for changing posture.
Some ... hyper sensitivity to sound I have turned off - but that might still be genetic and programmed out - or it could be purely brain programming. Lots of overlaps with genetics. Hard to tell.
Others - no data.

All I did was expand on it and moved it into the original model of nature/nurture.

Is this enough for us to understand? I doubt it.
It seems to be enough for now.

Second question - the answer is a scientist. Scientists are - by their nature trying to solve problems.
Aspies like to solve problems which is why some of us are scientists. I think more would be scientists in other circumstances. I gather we are actually rather more prolific in science than our 1% of the population.

Nature or nurture - a false dichotomy:

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles. ... --Nurture/
http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/stu ... omy_of_the

So true.

I made a similar comment in a recent thread in another forum:



There is some interesting research announced recently that suggests that biological information may be carried in centrioles. If this is borne out, it will be another complicating factor in the interplay of genes and environment.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 085630.htm

What's clear is that:
genes operate in environments
environments can change the way genetic information is translated to proteins
inflammatory processes can impact the development of the ion gates that regulate signalling in the nervous systems.
our internal microbiomes, particularly the gut microbiome, can have profound neurological effects (e.g. Serotonin production)

None of these systems are simple, the interactions between these systems are not simple and so it seems very unlikely that simplistic explanations of how those interactions produce effects (e.g., it's all genetic, it's all the gut microbiome, it's all environment, etc.) are going to be correct or helpful.