Upside down wrote:
A well constructed theory that is falsifiable, and who says you aren't a scientist. It sounded a lot like myself speaking, with the sense of humour derived from an obtuse view of the world, down to not having a degree yet being wickedly intelligent.
I don't necessarily wholly agree with your theory on the basis of gender differences in the size of the corpus collosum. In general population this structure is more developed in females than in males and so if autistic traits were a result of a smaller corpus collosum then the general male population would exhibit more autistic traits than females. On the other hand, if true, then it could explain the apparent higher diagnosis rate of HFA or Asperger's in males.
I too have had that flash of inspiration giving rise to an hypotheses of the root of Asperger's and autism, although I have viewed it more from a genetic / evolutionary perspective rather than the structural make up of the brain.
It goes like this:
The vast majority (around 95%) of the DNA unique to homo sapiens is from the subspecies h. sapiens sapiens, with the remaining 5% being contributed by h. sapiens neanderthalis. Fossil evidence shows that neanderthals were not only a more robust and stronger subspecies, but most likely more intelligent than their sapiens cousins. It has also been shown that Neanderthals lived in smaller social groups than h. sapiens sapiens and it has been suggested that this is because of the earlier maturation of Neanderthals resulting in a shorter period of passing on social skills to their young before maturity resulting in a lower level of cultural development. Of course those in larger, more socially organised groups gained ascendency over the less socially organised and the pure Neanderthals disappeared.
I speculate that Neanderthal's smaller social groups and reduced time period of social indoctrination could be due to a different mode of thought, coupled with a later development of language skills, that is, high functioning autism.
At least three periods of interbreeding with Neanderthals has been identified, once with Australian Aboriginals, twice with European populations and a third time with Asian populations. If ASD is a remnant of the Neanderthal mind then it would be expected to express most often in Asians, followed by Caucasians, then Aboriginals with a much lower occurrence in pure African populations.
The Neanderthal genes most obviously expressed in current humans are those involving lighter pigmentation of hair, skin and eyes.
This all came to me whilst I was trying to wrap my noggin around 6 dimensional geometries. This was making my brain hurt somewhat, when I considered that without an Aspie brain my head would probably be hurting a lot more.
So anyhow, I'm going back to working on my alternative to superstring theory and solving the mystery of existence.
I love my Aspie / Neanderthal mind and wouldn't want it any other way. We rock!
You're reinventing the wheel in this post.
Other folks have hit upon the same "Neanderthal theory" for the origin of autism/aspergers.
In fact it was kinda en vogue for a couple years on the Net before dying out a couple of years ago.
Neanderthals were a seperate branch of the family tree that thrived in Ice Age Europe. But then anatomical moderns invaded Europe from the east (from central Asia, but ultimately from Africa), and drove the Neanderthals to extinction within a few thousand years. But not with out doing some interbreeding with neanderthals. So modern non african humans today usually have around 2 percent Neanderthal DNA, while modern Africans have zero percent. Neanderthals lived in smaller social groups, and were also worse at social networking (they had less extensive trade routes than even stone age anatomical moderns did). So their normal behavior may have been more "autistic" than that of anatomical moderns. Ergo autism is a genetic legacy of the Neanderthals. Trouble is autism seems to be just as common among modern Africans as among any other race when the medical resources are there to ferret out autism. Interesting, but I think that its a rather dubious theory. But at the moment it cant really be either proven nor disproven. But you arent the first to think of it.
22 Apr 2015, 6:16 pm
