In today's world we live in a culture where professionals niche out, hyperspecializing to myriad of professions that suit very specific purposes. There are neurologists who spend their entire professional careers only studying sleep disorders. Physicists who focus their understanding of fluid dynamics. Lawyers who remember little law outside of contract law. This type of extreme focus can be a boon to our society, though it can also be a bane.

The boon that we get for society is an increase of detailed knowledge in specific fields, such as the cardiologist who discovers a way to alter the electrical conductivity of the heart to help a heart attack victim or the tropical botanist that finds specific chemical mediators in the blooming cycle of certain species. In the fields of science these contributions have advanced so much of our knowledge and how we apply it in both medicine and technology. These are the great and beautiful things about dedicating a life to a very specialized study. There is however a pathological dark side that goes hand in hand with such levels of hyper focus, and that is the autism spectrum disorder.

A basic description of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a phenotypic pattern of behaviors marked by impairment in social interaction and communication characterized by extreme behaviors. The main neurochemical issue is a decrease in the rates of Oxytocin (the bonding hormone). Amongst the many impairments in autism spectrum disorders is abnormalities in both verbal and nonverbal communication as well as impairment in imaginative and symbolic play. The impairment of the imagination and empathy are ones I find to be quite devastating. Other features associated with ASDs are significantly high rates of ADHD and OCD, so significant in fact that they are basically characteristics of the disorder.

There are many things that contribute to the development of ASDs, and contrary to popular hype vaccines do not appear to be a factor. There are genetic disorders and mutations that cause abnormal brain development, which aside from dealing with the mutagens in the environment are difficult to avoid. Traumatic brain injury increases rates. Neonatal exposure to various drugs such as Valproic Acid (a common seizure medication) increase the rates of ASDs to 20%. Children who live in close proximity to freeways are shown to have a higher risk. Children born living in close proximity to coal burning power plants. Children who live in areas with frequent pesticide use, which makes sense as pesticides are known nerotoxins. Children who are exposed to television at an early age show diminished language ability, such as the problems with the Baby Einstien videos, which were recalled due to evidence that they stunt language development. The reason this is is because language development is reciprocal, one party talks the other listens and then responds, a TV can never respond and thus never engage in communication. Another risk factor is the increase in rote robotic style tasks pushed in the classroom, such as sitting at the desk memorizing times tables. The fact is that children learn through play, and with recess being cut in many places and rote tasks being pushed at early ages to suit standardization there is an increased rate of ASDs in such school systems. Another factor is children born of engineers or other hyper focused professionals. The reason is that on average the phenotype of an engineer is one of a very details oriented person, hyper focused with less of a knack for social skills. In fact their are very high rates of ASDs among engineers.

Now I outline all of those causative factors to explain that their is no singular cause for ASDs, it is a multi factorial pathology. Where if you are looking at the level of socialization for an individual each of these factors can push a developing mind further and further into an ASD pathology.

The hyper focus in a person severely effected by an ASD to use this metaphor is a person who can't see the forest through the trees, they can't see the trees through the leaves, nor can they see the leaves through the pattern of the veins in the leaves. In children when you watch them play, you will see those moderately effected are unable to see a toy as anything different than what it represents, such as action figures can never fly and cars can never be space ships. In the more severely effected, a child will merely line up their toys or stare at the spinning wheel of a toy truck being unable to fully see the truck or the child organize them with no real signs of play at all. The level of hyper focus is such that there are children who get so devastatingly OCD with their habits such as food selectivity so that they may only eat noodles in silly shapes or they will get so obsessed with a Disney video that they watch it over and over for hours and then when its turned off will have a meltdown, which is like a temper tantrum except can last up to hours and be very aggressive or self injurious.

The reason I highlight this is because it seems that we are causing higher rates of this disorder in our society, based on our professional focus, our environmental toxins, our media addiction, as well as our educational system.

Likewise I am of the opinion that DMT has a role to play in the development of our imaginations, and I can see the sadness of what a world looks like with diminished imagination. I wonder what a world will look like with a heightened capacity for imagination.

What if the appearance of these rising rates is influenced by rising expectations that contemporary society places on people?

If I had been a child today, I'd probably have a bunch of labels attached to me and I would be taking quite a bit more prescribed psychoactive drugs than I am now doing recreationally as an adult. When I was young, there wasn't an industry around (medicatable) problems, you were at most a bit odd and that wasn't such a big deal.

Autism is a neurological developmental disorder, what a society chooses to call it has little effect on what it is. Though there is the aspect that we are better at diagnosing it, which is a factor in the rising rates though, it's not the only factor and certainly not the most significant. Low functioning autism back in earlier times would just have labeled a child as mentally retarded (just a different label), however there are many children severely effected that really don't have a significant decrease in overall cognitive function, meaning that they aren't actually retarded, their impairment in communication just makes them look that way.

I understand a person with high functioning autism (Aspergers) preferring not to be labeled with the diagnosis. And that's fair as they typically function alright in society as many develop the specialized jobs I was talking about and hold social skills discussing their fields of interest, in fact sociaological it is believed that we need Aspergers in society as a person with Aspergers focusing on their field of interest is said to generate 8 times the amount of work a typical person can in the feild. I believe that's the average estimate.

There is a reason we need to "label" pathologies. OCD is an anxiety disorder, we need to be able to call it something to recognize what it is and possibly treat it. Same is true for ADHD, and same is certainly true for autism. They are real problems in functioning, not just "quirks" in personality. I think the problem is when things are misdiagnosed which is a separate issue entirely. Though I do agree sort of with your stance, a lot of the problem is with this society.

Are you suggesting that we are 'training' people to be autistic by pushing people to specialize in their careers?

That seems like a very bold claim to make. Most children manifest autism-spectrum symptoms when they are very young, long before they have seen enough of the world to learn about career specialization. By what mechanism do you propose this happens?

Blessings
~ND

I am not at all suggesting that we are training people to be autistic, though we do set up the conditions in our society that lead to higher rates of autism.

Much of specialization in this particular aspect comes more or less genetically. Such as there being higher rates of autism spectrum disorders (Aspergers) among engineers. There is a city close to where I live with high rates of engineers associated with a technological field. In those communities there are much higher rates of autism than in the general population. This is because typically the people that gravitate towards a particular field, in this case, engineers, more often than not have a particular behavioral phenotype, basically temperament or personality type I guess, which makes them suited to what they do. Kinda why you see a lot of artist pesple in Hollywood I suppose. The field of engineering requires a more detail focused mind and the phenotype expressed is typically a mind with less of a focus on social skills. With a lot of engineers working and living close together, a lot of them hook up and have kids and thus spread genes with that particular phenotype.

If you look at socialization on a bell curve there would be people on one side of the curve with minimal but socially normative social skills and on the other end would be those with heightened sensitive set of social skills, with the average person falling in about the middle. Engineers on average tend to fall closer towards the minimum social skills.

So say when a child is closer to the lower side of average social development on this curve, there are other things that can push them over the edge of a range considered "normal" or not pathological and over into the range of an autism spectrum disorder.

Now there are things that can harm the developing brain in utero that can impair this side of neurological development, such is the case with just straight up trauma, the mother getting infected with rubella, or a mother being on valproic acid (20% of children born to a mother on valproic acid develop autism.) These are things that can happen to effect the developing mind in utero, which tangles brain development from the womb. And those are just some of the examples.

After birth when a child is young and the mind is still developing there are other factors that we know of, environmental factors such as exposure to pesticides because they are neurotoxic and harm the developing brain, children living in close proximity to a freeway, likewise pollutants, and children who live close to a coal burning power plant. These are all known environmental contributors to the rates of autism.

Then once children get into a setting where they are supposed to learn language skills, mistakes can be made. Parents who stick their kid in front of a TV on a regular basis while the are still at the crucial stage of development to grasp language can add another push. Language development is stunted when babies sit in front of a TV, this is because you can not learn language from a TV, because language is reciprocal, you have to respond to what someone is saying and know that they hear what you are saying, so a TV cant do this. When families spend a lot of time watching TV they tend to talk less in the home, so babies don't get a crucial exposure to language at an early age. Then when the child gets in school if they are pushed to do very rote tasks like reinforced times tables memorization and they are kept further out of activities considered play , their development is stunted further at another crucial stage of social development. Children learn by play.

So this whole issue is multifactorial so many different social and environmental factors can add up to the perfect storm where a child would develop an autism spectrum disorder. Much of these meltdowns related to a child being up set have to do with their inability to communicate and when it happens at an early enough age they can't communicate their needs. There are other issues too, but that is a part of the extremes in behavior associated with autism.

The reason I was making a remark on hyper specialization is because that is where you see high rates of Aspergers which is a more functional form of autism. From what I have read that phenotype serves great role in our society, as they theorize that a person with Aspergers can accomplish the work in a field that it would take about 7 or 8 people with a more average level of socialization, which is quite impressive and very useful, but that phenotype tetters close to the edge of a more debilitating expression of an autism spectrum disorder.

I am making a point about this because rates of autism are going up because of environmental factors that we can change. Because the rates are going up it means that their will be more people so stunted in their social development and so hyper focused that they will only eat Cheetos from snack sized bags and will scream and tantrum if offered a Cheeto from a regular sized bag for three hours. That is a case of the extreme end of the spectrum, but there are many kids out their who grow up on that extreme, and this is something that needs to change. Though again the cause of autism is multifactorial from genetics down to early environmental factors. If vaccines really were the only isolated cause, that would be an easy fix, all you would need to do is find and isolate whatever factors were hindering brain development. But it's not so easy. Everything points to problems with this environment based on our exposure to toxins and the problems with our culture, based on our addiction to TV and the structure on which we choose to educate children.

That's the rough idea of it from what the evidence shows.

The best and most definitive book so far on Autism has just come out: Neurotribes

http://www.nytimes.com/2...eve-silberman.html?_r=0

With an intro by Oliver Sacks, it is now on the nytimes best sellers list. He tells the history of why it was so little diagnosed in the past. I would favor that view. I think he debunks the idea that Autism or Asperger's are increasing over time. His thesis is that it went largely undiagnosed.

Autism and Asperger's are both debilitating and very difficult and challenging experiences both for the children and for their caregivers and for the adults that they will become. However, as Steve simply puts it, they can also come with gifts. However, those gifts are not so quantifiably straightforward as to naively state that an Asperger's spectrum adult is 8 times more effective in a job than a "neurotypical".

We may now be more sensitive to the realities and difficulties of those on the spectrum and more capable of diagnosing and helping them. That may be more fitting to the reality than the belief that somehow we are creating conditions for more autism.

I don't discount the effects of the caregiving environment and the early mother-child relationship on personality formation. However, neither do I discount the inheritance of predispositions.

His book started in Silicon Valley and he wrote the article the Geek Syndrome before he wrote the book. If you are interested in the subject, you might be interested in reading the book?

I would like to read that book. I do have access to a library of literature all pertaining to autism, and I'm quite sure that's in the library.

And sure there are many people who believe that it is merely the diagnostic criteria as to why the rates of autism are going up, as many earlier lower functioning children with autism back in the day were merely said to be mentally retard. Though there are others who disagree. Rates are quite high. The reason they disagree is that there are environmental factors that play a contributing role in this. Some of the causes of autism are 100% genetic so there will still be an expression of that in society, but the factors in the environment are ones that we can, over time change. So this is not "debunked" yet still being debated. I will try to post as many links related to this research that I can when I have the time.

Also as to the conjecture that those with Aspergers working in a specified field are capable of producing 7-8 times more work due to their increased focus is not my claim. I'm just repeating what I have read on that, though it is theoretical conjecture. The overall idea is that professionals with Aspergers contribute greatly to their respective fields of study. That was my only point, though throwing out numbers like that isn't really fitting, so I do concede I could have phrased that better.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I'd like to concede to you as well that "debunked" is not the best word either and that debated is a better word for the "debate" as regards nature/nurture and Autism.

It is my impression that Steve comes strongly down on the nature side. His book was just released a week ago.

If you are interested here he is is on the mainstream npr show Fresh Air: http://www.npr.org/secti...-of-the-autism-spectrum

A Definition of Aspergers (Also known as High Functioning Autism)

The Link Between Autism Spectrum Disorders and Engineers

Vaccines Actually Preventing Cases of Autism (The Case of Congenital Rubella)

Understanding the Etiology of Autism

Environmental Links to Autism

TVs are not Good for Language Development

Play and it's Importance

Here are a handful of links related to this topic. I wish I was able to get more, however many of the scholarly websites I found you had to pay for access to the full articles and I did not want to clog this reply with abstracts, nor am I paying 20$ just to link to an article. I do have access to more research but I would have to scan the articles and upload them which would take a lot of time. I would urge anyone curious on the subject to delve deeper, especially those with access to the services that have these research papers. Though I will say that Google has a scholarly section and they do a good job of linking the articles, quick keyword searches can turn up some decent results, even if just to read the abstract.

There are some important points I like to make about this.

The fear being spread that vaccines cause autism is quite unfounded. In fact there is evidence to the opposite, as is the case of congenital rubella increasing the rates of autism, thus when we vaccinate against rubella, rates of autism actually go down. This is well documented and shows where we can actually prevent cases of autism. In fact the hysteria behind vaccines and autism has developed large cohorts of under vaccinated populations leading to children being more vulnerable to measles, mumps, and rubella (a disease shown to cause autism). There are cases of children dying of the mumps in these cohorts.

The case for environmental causes of autism is still very much a part of active research. There are strong cases made to conclude that mercury in the environment contribute to the rates of autism as mercury is a neurological toxin. Now in the case of vaccines, mercury used to be in them in the form of Thiomersal however that link has proved to be inconclusive or false as many aggressively put it. I think Thiomersal is only in the flu vaccine now and has been taken out of the others, though I'm not 100% sure of that. The main environmental link in relation to mercury exposure is related to coal burning power plants and the mercury toxins that are leeched into the environment. Though the obvious idea is that cumulative effects from mercury exposure in things such as eating fish with high mercury levels can contribute. Likewise it is known that pesticides are neurotoxic, this is why we have such a problem with bees in colony collapse disorder. Now bees and humans are two different animals but there is a good case to be made that people living in close proximity to areas with frequent and heavy pesticide use will have a contributing toxic effect on brain development. Like I said all of these points are being researched but the evidence seems to be pointing in the direction of these environmental factors playing a role in the rates of autism. If this is the case which while difficult to show 100% conclusively, as ASDs are multifactorial in there etiology, it would mean that if we utilized an energy source different from coal burning (that did not output such toxins) that rates of autism would decrease. Likewise is the case if our agriculture was changed to suit decreased uses of neurotoxic pesticides. And if it becomes beyond a shadow of a doubt conclusive that children living in close proximity to freeways do have higher rates of autism, then developing automotive technology that had less pollutants pumped into the environment would lead again to decreased rates of autism.

The evidence seems to be strong that there are environmental causes, but the multifactorial nature of autism etiology makes these conclusions less black and white than other pathologies. If these environmental factors are shown to be the case, and we develop technologies to decrease the output of these factors the logical conclusion is that rates of autism will go down.

Likewise Americans watch a ton of TV, and TV has a significant and negative effect on early language development, and since the brain isn't fully developed until much later in life, early exposure to TV will have a negative effect on language development and add a push to an ASD. Our cult of the tube is culturally mediated. Much in the way that beauty magazines and portraying a super model physique as being really thin contribute to higher rates of anorexia nervosa in the US.

Also many people like to use the phrase of nature "versus" nurture when discussing such topics. This is misleading, nature and nurture contribute both to neurological develop. There is a strong genetic link, and there appears to be a strong environmental link which can tip the scales to a pathology, as some evidence appears to indicate. A good example of that is a person that has PKU (nature), if from birth that eat a careful diet with minimal phenylalanine (nurture) then the disorder is minimally expressed.

Also thank you drfaust for that NPR link. I do like the view that the millions of dollars put into autism research could be better spent for services and help to those affected with autism. I tend to take that view as well, though we still need some research.

In that regards we can focus on changing our environment for completely other reasons. If we have better technologies adapted to energy production than coal, such as solar, geothermal, wind, or bioelectric, which became more economical and localized as techonolgy progressed. And we had cars that put off less pollutants into the environment. And we worked out our problems with pesticides so that we prevented colony collapse disorder in bees that would be cool. And if the byproduct of all of this change was less rates of ASDs in society then I'd be quite alright with that.

If we evolve into a culture where families communicate more with each other and build a better social environment than spending hours zoning out to a TV or obsessing with video games, then that would be beautiful.

And if our education system evolved where play and hands on was used to better establish mnemonics for learning than the known to be more ineffective strategy of constant lecturing, a focus on rote tasks, or Powerpoint dribble, that can only be a good thing.

The human mind isn't said to be done fully developing until roughly the age of 25 years old. I believe the last bits to develop are the mylenating of the frontal lobe, which is why teenagers are so damn impulsive. Any missteps along this path can have abnormal effects on brain development.

Nobody told you about sci-hub.org yet? Merkins may need to use a non-US proxy. There is a thread Access to full text or reprints on the forum where you may request articles, but I think that it is intended for mostly dmt-related articles. Requesting masses of unrelated articles could be frowned upon, but an occasional article that you are really desparate for would not be so bad to request there, I guess.

Thank you pitubo for the tip, I'll keep that reference in mind. Sounds quite useful for future posts.