is autism whatcable in the brain?

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If you'll pardon the pun, my brain made the cable connection, too. I thought I might be looking at a SCART vs HDMI analogy, lol.

My brother with severe autism has been brain-scanned and the result was that his brain is absolutely perfect, without even the most little speckle. They didn't find anything weird.

I was never brain-scanned, so I don't know about myself.

Are you kidding me? So brain scans are absolutely worthless. At this point I don't even see the point in using the term NT because I bet there's also no perfect chemistry for NT brains. We are a century away from efficient neurological diagnostics, simply cause even if we invent them, we'll still have to learn them.

NT doesn't imply "perfect chemistry."

Also, deciding that brain scans are absolutely worthless on the basis of a single anecdote is not really "good science."

I find it very concerning that a severe autistic's brain scan came up normal. Just how precise do scans have to be to actually detect something?

Yeah I meant whatchable

Just for the record, medical tests including brain scans are to rule things out as well as identify something specific. So even if autism turns out to have no consistent MRI finding, it is still valuable as a way to rule out any other conditions that might be causing overlap symptoms such as a brain injury.

For diagnosing autism, yes.

However, they are nearly 100% effective at diagnosing brain tumors (depending on who's reading the scan) so I wouldn't throw them out just for that.

Current clinical-level brain scans are generally only good for things like brain tumors, brain bleeds, bullet in the brain, missing lobes, and other non-microscopic features. IOW, those scans are good for nothing when it comes to how the brain is wired. If a person somehow had their brain mis- or un-wired in a fatal way you'd never be able see it on a standard scan. There are now research-level scans that can trace brain tracts, and that research is showing interesting results with ASD people.

Just so y'all know, MoonCanvas was banned for trolling.

That boy sure has some issues, lol.

Apologies to the Mods if that counts as discussing a banned member, but damn........

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a complex neurological condition.
I recently finished reading "The Autistic Brain" by Temple Grandin.
Temple has had numerous brain scans over her life, and her brain is quite different to NT people; however there is a pretty wide range of difference when it comes to brains, and as with so many other things there is no such thing as "normal"
ASD behaviour is different, and the ASD brain can be different, but which causes what is a very chicken and egg thing at this stage, as the human brain is less understood and less researched than the ocean or the universe, and infinitely more complex.

Parts of the brain of people with ASD have shown to be larger and some parts smaller compared to NT's but there is little consistency, and not really any understanding of what causes this.
The behavioural range and diagnosis of people with ASD is the only certain thing when it comes to ASD, and it may not be for quite some time until a definitive diagnostic tool will be developed to show what differences there are what causes ASD.
In the meantime we will have to wait and make the most of the good work done by Gaus and Atwood in finding ways to deal with being "on the spectrum".