New autism study (Curious what u all think)

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It might well work for you, and possibly others, but for me, and even more people, it has done more harm than good. In other words, the solution was iatrogenic. I direct you to rxisks.org and davidhealy.org, as well as sites like survivingantidepressants.org, paxilprogress.org, etc. if you want to pursue this further.

No thanks. I'd rather keep all of my synapses.

Eh, nothing new to me. The only thing I'm going to say is I question the ethics of something of declarations, but it's nothing too serious.

Yeah it is sort of my concern that, that is how that 'treatment' would turn out...and I for one do not want a lobotomy of any kind.

Or, to use an old tag line I've seen used in the past, "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, instead of a frontal lobotomy."

the drug Rapamycin that they used on the mice didn't actually prune synapsis. It restored autophagy, which is the natural process by which synapsis are pruned.

Still, using the drug on autistic people seems very scary as it may change a persons personality.
Things like prodigious memory, attention to detail, hyper focus, savant abilities, hyper emotion etc. may all be a product of un-pruned synapsis along with undesirable symptoms like anxiety and social and sensory problems.

A lot of people have mentioned that they wouldn't want a cure because it would change who they are.
A drug that messes with your brain like that could really change who you are.

Exactly. On both counts. Be afraid, but for the right reason, and not the wrong reason.

1) According to the article the drug does NOT "prune your synapses". What it does is ALLOWS you body to do the pruning itsself. Your body would "know" what to do - but in autistics (if this discovery is right) your body is inhibited by the presence of an 'overactive protien'. The drug inhibits the protein that inhibits the natural pruning.

2)This discovery seems to be nothing less that the cause (and a possible cure) for autism. If you had been given this drug as a child- you might be an NT version of yourself today (for better or worse) lacking both some abilities and alot of disabilitites. So it could indeed lead to a brave new world.

Fair enough. I remember reading that but it didn't quite "click". Still, I definitely wouldn't want anything that could potentially change my personality.

No, I'm not talking about just marketing! The drugs companies don't publish all their data, discontinue trials when the data they are producing is not in the interests of the company, and therefore don't allow doctors and patients to make informed decisions about the meds themselves. There's a book about it written by a doctor who understands the system. It's called "Bad Pharma," by Ben Goldacre.

That's great that you are being helped so much by the meds you are on. Some people are helped, others are not. I am still experiencing withdrawal syndrome from the antidepressants I was put on for no good reason and taken off of too fast for my body to cope.

Agree with this completely. Thank goodness for those websites.

It looks kind of promising, but they admit they'd need something safer than Rapamycin.

Personally I'm not dissatisfied enough with my autism to want to medicate it. Strong meds might normalise one thing, but they always seem to de-normalise other things eventually.

The most interesting part to me is this repeated pattern of "increased connectivity" within autistic brains. Increased incidence of synesthesia, differences in multisensory processing, etc. seem to be consistent with these kinds of findings. As for drugs to reduce synapses, this seems to be the "future directions" part of this article. I seriously doubt these will come into use until they have been more rigorously tested and have undergone rounds of human trials.

Furthermore, I'm kind of tired of hearing the media talk about "cures of autism" as if it is one simple condition with treatments that can be applied broadly. We know autism can be caused by multiple factors. Is this finding of increased synapses just for those who have co-morbidity with, say, fragile-x syndrome or is it for all autistic people? 26 subjects probably isn't enough to say.

Um, isn't that what fluoride is for?

Sort of push their <helpful> drugs... if they were not effective patients wouldn't keep taking them. It really is not a conspiracy.

Not trusting big pharma is irrational.

I agree - the study is very interesting but I wouldn't want the "cure".

Maybe you are not clear on what all 'big pharma' refers to....irrational would be blindly trusting them. Of course some of the drugs are effective, but many of them have lots of nasty side effects...some people are coerced into taking certian meds that might not be the best for them, doctors might prescribe a more 'marketed' medication due to some perk they are getting even if it might not be the best medication for that person. The trouble is there is gigantic profit motive within 'big pharma' so it ends up being more about the profit than making sure people are getting medications they need to help them...maybe even making misleading claims about medications or not being upfront about all the possible side effects just to get more people on it. Also a lot of these meds have terrible withdrawls yet the get prescribed like candy...feeling down? 'well take this anti-depressant, you should also add this anti-psychotic'. So yes there is lots of reason to question 'big pharma' and not trust it, but one can certainly trust that medications can help, they can and do, do that for some people but trusting big pharma would pretty much mean you'll take any drug they tell you without question and trust they always know best which does not seem to smart to me. I personally like to look into medications before I take them, make sure I am comfortable with the risks vs. the potential benefits...and if something is having nasty effects I am not going to keep taking it.