Neurological origin of autism?

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Having followed WP for more that one year, I see again and again some questions being repeated. If AS on any other form of disturbance within the autistic spectrum being of neurological origin, how can it be that there are various degrees in the disorder. Is it not a yes or no problem, and to whom should I pose my problem a neurologist or a psychiatrist?
I will try to give some answers based on my experience of having lived my life with an autistic problem (fundamentally not being able to read the mind of others and being clumsy and ineffective in my staying with others), but, at the same time having had a very difficult family history, so that both aspects have been affected, the genetic, and the so called traumatic.
I am convinced that if you have a defective genetic dotage, and a difficult conflict relationship with your parents or close protectors (foster parents etc.) your problems will not be summed but will be compounded.

My experience of psychiatrists, neurologists and self defining psychoanalysts may be affected by some regionalism, but has been disastrous, being psychoanalysts at the bottom of the ladder. Professional labeling may not mean much (except in the case of psychoanalysts), but having problems I would probably look for a neurologist.

It’s difficult anyway that neurological and traumatic problems don’t get compounded, because if you have a neurological flaw it is very probable that this will run in the family, and, if so, you will find much more incompetence and unavailability in your parents or relatives in handling you with generosity and understanding.

As for the yes or no problem, I think that it’s like being a good, mediocre, bad musician or not being no musician at all. Being good at music, like in many other activities (a politician, a mime, a poet) which draw in some way on instinct primarily, if not exclusively, is something that may not be a matter of yes or no, but a matter of more or less, Dealing with others draws on instinct more than anything else and such qualities like tact, delicacy, intuition of other people’s intentions, are a little learned and perfected with experience, but if they are not based on an instinctive capacity you will not go very far, as sad this may be.

I agree with you. That's an interesting observation on the compounding. My mom seems very much on the spectrum. I know I wasn't socialized properly as a baby and she did not use facial expressions with me. I lived isolated life where my mom did not want any of us to venture from home. Sometimes I think I might not be on the spectrum at all if I had been taught socialization. How much is nature; how much is nurture?

I think neurologists or neuropsychologists should be the ones diagnosing AS. Not psychologists. Its not a mental disorder; it appears to be neurological and/or developmental. My first AS diagnosis came from a medical doctor; I received a second AS diagnosis from a neurologist. I urge anyone who sees a general practioner on a regular basis to mention AS to them if you are wanting to get a diagnosis. Drs are trained to analyze things and they might surprise you by admitting they had noticed they way you act or avoid eye contact for instance. My dr flat out told me that I acted like someone with Aspergers which opened up the opportunity to discuss it with her as I had been suspecting it myself for months before she brought it up.

I have never loved my mother, nor liked her. My father was dependent on my mother (absolutely dominant in family affairs) and though I hade a sister 5 years older there was no intimacy between us, while by my father I was lived as the only person he could attack. Thinking about these things in these days, nearly ten years after my mother’s death, I realized that there was not a single person in the world whom could be said loved my mother or was a friend for her. After my birth there was no more passion or sex between my parents. But I knew this thing, which was essential to explain the dynamics internal to my family only after the death of my father. Now I ask: how could a psychiatrist disentangle all these fundamental factors if I was myself not in condition to know the facts? I have met many, psychiatrists, neurologists (not to talk of psychoanalysts – for them I have only despise) and no one asked me anything about my family, and even if they wanted to ask I would not be able to give the information I didn’t have.
To this must be added a huge ignorance of the latest essential discoveries about the working of the mind.
The reality in all its nuances and interdependencies of the “autistic spectrum” is only beginning to be explored by such full time researchers like Uta Frith and Baron Cohen. They have advanced frames for interpretation of autism which seem valuable but are in most cases ignored by pratictioners in the field.

Incidentally: what Ticker says in her signature is exactly what I feel about myself

Yes, this is one that has really had me distressed; the issue of how much is "pure" biology" , and how much is my parents biologically determined behaviour acting on me , and how much is it their learned selves acting on me, which has produced "this"?! !
My Dad definitely has ( biological style, extreme introversion difficulties )aspergers characteristics . My mother has (probably unrelated )upbringing related problems.
I think my mild (! !??) aspergers is worsened when I eat wheat , and gluten in general ,( when I don't experience it as a super high of mental activity that is, and sod the alienation and detachment from people that comes with it; until the voices jabbering in my head and my indifference to other people starts to feel painful , at which point I make myself stop wheat again!!) , and my Dad is a coeliac disease survivor, very thin. My son seems to have a lot of my symptoms aswell as full on coeliac disease. But I don't know how much his difficulties are the result of being brought up by me,and a "me" in severe post-natal-depression for the first 2 and a half years of his life.
Difficult to separate the strands. Especially as apparently ones neurological state changes during life depending on how much long term stress one is exposed to. For instance peoples " basal' level of optimum brain stimulation; that is the level of neuro activity at which they perform most effectively , can be pushed down after prolonged stress, which means that a person will be less and less able to function with lots of stimuli the longer they have been stressed.
And also means that even neuro activity tests will not necessarily be measuring something you were born with!!

What I have in my signature is part of a song by Jane Wiedlin called "The Good Wife". I love that woman! I swear she is one of "us" (ie: Aspie). The lyrics go "..I'm sweet on the outside, but rotten within, polite on the edges, but mean inbetween... the harder I try, the lower I go...you don't know..."

PM me if you would like to hear the song. Its very hard to get ahold of that album, "Kissproof World". The lead track also contains such memorable lines as "grab your armour, paint your face; time to fight the human race"

The above quote withstanding for a moment, I concur with your post.

Taking into consideration the above quote, I take it too, as correct. I also see a cycle of abuse as a potential in the upbringing of the care givers. Very often those that abuse, were abused. They are as trapped in a cycle as anything that might be genetic. There are many examples of what is abuse, far to many to list.

To break the cycle one must be aware of the root causes. Even though our disposition is some what loosely based and compounded, we are at least fortunate enough to be aware. The chance to break the cycle, not to pass on non genetic abuse. That we can hope to heal others, well, I think change can only come from with in. If lucky others might see something in us that they can relate to, give them pause and reflect upon themselves. Perhaps to see their own cycle and set themselves free.

Humans are neurodiverse. Neurotypical and Asperger's Syndrome are just two of the names we humans ascribe to that diverstiy. Ultimately, however, all such labels reflect our human constructions.

Cheers,

Mark

Neurological origin of autism?

What is the neurological origin of autism?

Symbolically - I have a computer chip in the motherboard of my brain/mind which is imperfect.

http://www.associatedconditionsofcerebralpalsy.com/
http://www.sportsconcussions.org/
http://www.headinjury.com/

http://www.out-of-sync-child.com/

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/auti ... autism.htm

http://www.hbo.com/movies/temple-grandin/index.html

The failure in formation of the I-thou feedback loop, and subsequent malformation of theory of mind are pretty much genetic. Everything past that is experience.

I have been reading quite a bit about the hypothalamus and Right Temporal Lobe in the context of some of my neurological symptoms which include :

Siezure activity beginig in the right temporal lobe
Hypo-sensitive smell
Hypersensitive hearing
Hearing in abnormal range
difficulty "filtering" auditory information
Above all managed between signals from the Hypothalamus to the Right Temporal Lobe

interesting but possibly incedental, also high leuteinizing hormone (female infertility)
Hypothalamus signals the pituitary gland to produce LH

abstract regarding study about autism and the hypothalamus & Right Temporal Lobe
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15257489


Seems to explaine alot about my personal symptoms.

Paolo, Ticker, and Ouinon - I agree with the points you make. I have had similar experiences. I come from a family where almost everyone was on the autism spectrum, including both my parents. My mother was very self-centred and a control freak. She had everything about my life pre-planned in her head, and couldn't understand that I had a different perspective on life and didn't want what she wanted. As I grew older, I didn't develop at all in the way she wanted, e.g. I didn't have girlfriends and didn't develop the type of personality that she wanted her son to have. She was also very strict about every single detail of how to keep the house, and minute-by-minute behaviour. The more I failed to behave as she wanted, the more she became aggressive. That was a spiral: me being autistic, struggling to cope with life, that was making my mother aggressive and harrassing me, which made life even more difficult for me, and so on...

Regarding the neurological origin of autism: if I understand the research properly, people are born with a genetic predisposition to autism, and their experiences as young babies set their brain circuits permanently, so that they become autistic or nonautistic early in life. I'm wondering: if someone's mother is on the autistic spectrum, and doesn't use facial expressions, tone or voice, or respond to her baby's emotions in the way neurotypical mothers can, could that set the baby's brain circuits to autistic, and thus make someone autistic whose genes already predisposed him/her to autism?

I also find it difficult to disentagle what parts of my current difficulties come from my autism, what is due to the way my parents treated me, and what is due to social expectations. This question is often in my mind, but I try not to get too worked up about it. I find it more important to understand myself as I am and work on addressing my difficulties as they are affecting me in the here and now.

I also agree that psychoanalysis is not very useful to people on the spectrum. I think that Freud's theories are outdated. Post-Freudian psychonalysis may be useful sometimes, but mostly to some nonautistic people. I have had cognitive-behaviour therapy, with someone who was very familiar with the cognitive profile of autistic individuals, and I have found it useful.

Last I heard anybody talking about it, the reason we do not have a cure for the "common" cold is there ain't no such animal - there is a range of viruses that in diffgderent combinations produse the symptoms - just as I am told where we are theere are some 55 species of mosquito, a fact of which I am EXTREMELY conscious these last days.

I cannot but suspect that the multifarious patterns we see on the spectrum reflect a VERY complex pattern of causation.

I'm wondering about this. There seems to have been a brain scan developed lately that could detect autism pretty accurately : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10929032 . It seems to work whatever the flavour of autism. If this news is confirmed, this would mean that what we call the "autism spectrum" is indeed one single condition. The details of how it is caused however, could still differ between affected individuals.

There can be varying degrees of neurological impairment just as there can be varying degrees of brain injuries, mental retardation, ect. And how a person is affected, and to what degree, will depend on the person.

In terms of AS, if there are genetic factors at play, it is helpful to remember that the human brain is an extremely plastic organ, and how you are raised will influence how your brain develops.



Psychologist/psychiatrists are just as capable of drawing conclusions about human behavior as neurologists. The best a neurologist is going to do is speculate on what a particular set of abnormalities are supposed to indicate. It's just as much "interpretation" as psychology. As it stands, there are no magic brain scans or blood tests that detect autism, and even if there was, it would still come down to doctors arbitrarily defining what counts as "autism."

And there's not much of a difference between a "disorder" and a "developmental disorder."

--XFG

Here we have 3 different instances. Psychiatry for mental problems, neuropsychiatry for autism and neurology for... yea the rest. Oddly enough ADHD is NOT in neuropsych here but in psych. It makes me mad.

---

I vs you
You vs I

In my view, there can be a gap in that complex feedback loop. Some insightful books I am aware of which touch a little on this idea (of a gap) are the Awakenings book by Oliver Sacks and a How To (understand) book about ADHD Inattentive by C. Thomas Wild. Both books report FDA approved medicines which can temporarily improve (not a cure) small aspects of cognition and gross and fine motor control. The Awakenings book is about L-Dopa (not a cure) and the How To book is about Tirend, NoDoz, and Bonine (not a cure).

Neither books are cures.

Words

Empathy
Social skills

and so on.

I
You
We

She
He

Mine
Their
Our

etc.

Part vs Whole
Trees vs Forest

Normal Human Imagination
Imperfect Human Imagination

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateraliza ... n_function
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranial_nerves

How is a written word (visual) on a book page converted into a vivid, color 3D image in the brain/mind?

How is a spoken word (auditory) from a telephone conversation converted into a vivid, color 3D image in the brain/mind?

Cognition
Perception
Paying Attention
Memory

Neurotransmitter (not a cure)
Neurotransmitters (not a cure)

Sensory Processing
Sensory Integration

and so on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/park ... isease.htm
http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-5/auditory.htm
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/adhd/adhd.htm

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/aspe ... perger.htm
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/autism/autism.htm

http://www.epilepsy.org.uk/info/seizures/absence
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/epil ... ilepsy.htm
http://www.associatedconditionsofcerebralpalsy.com/

etc.