My Theory of Asperger's and it's Root Cause

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I am thinking myself, that Autism is how we relate to the world, after some radical wiring or re-wiring of the brain has happened. Before birth or in the first couple of years.
Thus, it is probably not ONE area of the brain that works differently, but several.
Again, we do not fully understand the NORMAL workings of our brains & certainly not our minds as of yet.

Sincerely,
Matthew

I Have always found that meditation is helpful for improving social skills and in controlling my own thought patterns and responses. The reason for this effect of meditation is because it increases brain connectivity between both left to right hemispheres, and vertically throughout the different levels of brain. Meditation increases white matter and grey matter!. If meditation has a beneficial affect on aspergers then this is positive evidence of a global connectivity problem in the brain, and a there is already a method to help with the limiting aspects of aspergers for many people.

I have to agree with you here, I find meditation is helpful too. I try to meditate at least once a day, usually I end up not but on some days where I meditate for a long time, I find I'm mentally clear for the next two days! My thoughts seem flow and I can articulate my words very well and my mind has a kind balanced feel -my thoughts seem to effortlessly flow more often.

The visual design of this image is supposed to help balance the right/left hemispheres of your brain if you stare at it for a long period of time. Feel free to use it.

I think it's onto something. I know someone who did stem cell treatment for damaged white matter (between the hemispheres) and basically got better

I think it's an interesting idea. It has been brought up before, but there are instances of people who have surgically cut the corpus callosum to prevent epileptic seizures and the resulting side effects do not result in autistic psychological qualities.

http://www.webmd.com/epilepsy/guide/corpus-callosotomy

How come there is no option for 0% NO? To disagree No

I don't think the communication between the left/right brain is necessarily deficient - just different.

As for "theory of mind" and our apparent lack thereof? I think that has primarily to do with wiring differences. I for one initially tried projecting my own mode of thinking onto other people, and while this method often works for NT's, my brain is just too different than most people's for that to work! The "theory of mind" that I've developed to date was done by a much more difficult and time-consuming method akin to studying the behavior of a species other than my own. I had to learn the "NT ways" of thinking by rote.

I think the mechanism that's "supposed" to use theory of mind works perfectly fine. But because the whole brain is wired differently, the "algorithm" that works for NT's doesn't work for Aspies!

So when I apply "theory of mind" to a NT (as best I can), I'm most likely using a different part of my brain than most people use! I don't know this for sure; nobody's scanned my brain.

It's one reason I'd like to have my brain donated to science when I die, so neuroscientists can reverse engineer it.

I said 50%, btw. There's most likely something at work about left/right brain communication, and even if not, it's probably a communication difference between SOME two (or more) parts of the brain. I just doubt it's a "deficiency."

I read an article that said autopsies on people with Asperger's and low-functioning autism found that Asperger people had smaller, immature amygdalas and normal hippocampuses (hippocampi?). The reverse was the case for the L.F. autistic people.

I think in my case, being a schizo-aspie (SA) has its advantages and disadvantages.
being on the left and right side of the spectrum demands alot of attention to the detail and
at times can be draining and energy consuming. you wanna say something and its almost as if
someone can see you struggling, so they dish out a backlash in order not to contrast the ordeal in
which you are facing but moreover, the place in society has got a more neutral understanding
and solitude of events past and present, (whichever suits your natural persona best), to withstand
cultural aspects and dignitaries seen in our lives today. aspergers has just one disability, the problem to
single out events too readily without identifying possible cliches whereas sps have no problem in underlying
a root cause deemed whether or not to fail in the residual state of peoples minds.
So, what do i think? you may ask the qst, but never undermine the potential root cause.

What a load of bull, you clearly know nothing about neuroscience.

'Evolution is simply wrong"?

Okay.

If you say so.

My theory is:

Mirror Neurons.

http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Mirror_neurons

Essentially these are the structures that enable people to socialize/empathize and are hardwired into our learning/developmental stages.

Dysfunction in the mirror neuron system can very well be responsible for basically every AS trait. The fascinating and insidious part of this is that it is a series of developmental problems.. when the brain does not have the ability to do X it compensates during growth to adapt.

For example,

NT: From age 0 to 6 child picks up verbal cues and body language queues from adults. Thus they pick up voice modulation, body language decoding and all aspects of inter-social tools.

AS: From age 0 to 6 the mirror neuron system does not pick up verbal cues or body language from adults. Result is little to no voice modulation (monotone voice), difficulty in instantly deciphering body language and all other inter-social tools. The brain adapts at that early age by shunting audio/visual input processing from the mirror neuron system directly into the cognitive centers (basically your forehead region).

In short, rather than using the mirror neuron system to generate an instant virtual reality recreation of the audiovisual input so it is processed faster by the emotional centers of the brain, it re-allocates most of the input into the cognitive regions to decode it.

...which could be a strong indicator why AS/HFA brain studies show this population has a denser (more neurons per volume) and enlarged areas near the rear end of the cognitive region...right where the mirror neuron network 'plugs in'.

As the person grows older the NT reliance on their fully functional mirror neuron system is reflected into the way they create their world..social structures, interactions, etc. The AS brain oth, ends up in a parallel but different world within but physically existing in the NT world. This causes more adaptation within the brain (late childhood/early teens) towards higher cognitive processing requirements....and it is in this time period when AS is quite noticeable in its traits... as it is a social-skills developing time that requires instant-mirror neuron functions...which the AS mind does not have access to.

This is where the AS person misses out on the social life skills.

Motor function issues and spatial orientation issues could be co-morbid with mirror neuron dysfunction. It could very well be (and im just guessing here) that HFA autism itself is separate from AS in the sense that AS is purely mirror neuron dysfunction while HFA is mirror neuron dysfunction plus whatever causes autism.

There is one case of an AS man having electric pulses shot directly down his mirror neuron pathways and it temporarily allowing him to experience empathy and instant-recognition of social audio-visual input for a very short time.

I do not believe the AS symptoms are caused by the bridge between the two brain hemispheres. If that was the case then a lot, a lot more problems would be present since this 'bridge' connects and transfers basically every function of the brain back and forth. If you had a problem there you'd basically be lobotomized in some way.