Any new theories for Asperger cause?

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I'm not sure at all - but how can I (or anyone) be? I just think that AS forms a major (tho sometimes subtle) part of my personality and I can't see how certain bits could be "cherry picked" off.

Just a few points to try and catch up with you guys;

1. It's great to see Mitch say "How can you be so sure that AS has (solely) granted you all these positive attributes and skills?" Amen to that - let's at least try and imagine ourselves as not defined by AS tendencies - can you imagine yourself as you, with all your strengtrhs, but also without this clunky great machine going in your head that makes our socialising so difficult?

2. I think the brain white cells and other brain differences are largely a result of how AS tendency people use their brain - work by Eric Courchesne of University of California, San Diego suggests most abnormal autism brain growth occurs between birth and age 3 (i.e. not before birth) (Science, June 2005). See my site for more.


NeantHumain thanks particularly for your thoughtful critique; points I'd make in response;

I agree the AS mind is "better adapted in some contexts (e.g., scientific inquiry, mathematics, logic, engineering, and acquisition of knowledge) while being relatively impaired in other contexts (e.g., unstructured socializing, spontaneous behavior, and improvising strategies for novel situations). " - I think we can have it all - retain our systemising skills for appropriate contexts, but turn it off, let it go, for social etc contexts where using subconscious empathetic and intuitive tools without doubt gives better results, joy, connection etc.

On the "strong heritable component to autism" I believe we may have brains genetically tilted toward AS, but that we can still turn the other way, use our empathy capabilities etc..
(My model here is a partially sighted man may still choose option A - partial sight and no white stick, over option B - a blindfold and a white stick. This is what I think the AS deal is; a deafening systemising system - white stick - which drowns out the empathy etc potential - partial sight. I'd rather have partial sight and maybe fall over once in while.)

On brain components yes I do believe AS and NT's do have the same brain components. The studies as I understand them (again see my site) show we have mirror neurons, we have just not used them.
If we opened up your head right now do you think we would find no mirror neurons? No! - you have them, you have them when you're walking around tomorrow - you have just never fired them up, because your brain has developed down the AS way.

On whether AS or NT approach gives better lives,
(a) I am quite open to you deciding you want to use AS all the time - I believe better to use AS when it's best to and NT when it's best to,
(b) since I have laid down AS tendency in socialising I have not noticed any change in my attitudes, drivers, systemising ability at work etc, etc.. I believe you'll still be as intelligent etc, and you can still be your scientist, philosopher, designer - but just having more fun as well.

Thanks again for your posts - further thoughts very welcome

Instead of telling everybody they should try to behave like a NT person, why don't you find a 'cure' to the sensory issues most people on the spectrum suffer from? That would actually be helpful... And I'm totally sure these issues don't have anything to do with how I use my brain.

I do believe your approach helped you in your personal situation, but you have to understand that not everybody's brain works the same, and that the approach you used might not work in the same way for another person.

Also, it's just wrong to reduce AS to the social problems some of us may experience. (And some don't!) There are still other symptoms of AS, and if you never experienced any of them, it's not even sure you ever had AS. There is still the possibility of NT people just not being very social. My main symptoms are hypersensitivity (textures and certain frequencies of light), and simply trying to use a different way of thinking WON'T make that go away. I'm never going to be NT, it's as simple as that... You can't just ignore the biological difference.

Steve

I'm asbsolutely with you when you say "that autism disables the use of part of the brain for its normal purpose, and it is reallocated elsewhere" - my question is how does it disable that part of the brain - I believe through this logic systemising going on in your head using that part of the brain that usually empathises etc..

The "Failure to deactivate" research papers by Kennedy, Redcay and Courchesne (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articl ... id=1472462) and by Iacobini (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... med_docsum) looked at a part of the brain that was active when NT's socialised, but was not active when they were not socialising. In AS brains this area was active at both times.In my view this activity may well be systemising processes, being applied to all areas of life, and using up brain resources (cycles).


Eller

I think the sensory hypersensitivity (which I have in mild form) has developed because your brain has been seeking to capture and amplify every input (growing white matter to better insulate and keep these inputs), because it needs every fragment of data as it tries to navigate the world by logic and systemising.

Yes, AS is more than socialising. But I think all AS tendency effects (and probably autism too) come back to trying to relate to everything in life and the world through a logic, systemising approach. (Sometimes this is useful and good, sometimes not).


Thank you all everyone for engaging with me on this. I've added a 'Problems, Challenges etc' page to my site. Here's hoping some of you find a way out too if ever you want one. All the best

Learn to be a bullu...., Learn to move up not on my merit.


No thanks...I'm happy as me.

Good thread!

I regret that I've lost the thread (sorry, pun not intended).

I do not wish to offend, but can someone explain -

is it being advocated that we all have a lobotomy or some such so that the mischievous electrical signals in our wrongly wired brains would instead be sent the correct NT way and make us NT- compatible?

I believe that I simply have a different way of thinking (to the NTs) which has its own advantages and disadvantages, but I see nothing inherently wrong with that .


Michaelmas

IIRC?