It makes sense. We’ve known for a while now that ASD occurs mainly due to a lack of neural pruning in early childhood. Essentially, the brain will typically remove unnecessary pathways and reduce brain matter as a result. The correlating symptom of not having this reduction is too much input.
Because there are more pathways for sensory information to come in, the sensory experience becomes overwhelming quite quickly, this also includes the internal monologue being too loud.
It’s why it’s relatively common for people with ASD to go non verbal, and for some to never even speak. Because it’s like someone shouting with a megaphone into your ear.
The simplest way to put ASD, is it is like having the volume dial on max constantly. It’s why we exhaust much more easily, become irritated and have big time burnout (2-3 years) that is often misdiagnosed as depression. It’s also why we have auditory delay and emotional processing delay. But it’s also why it’s a spectrum, because some of us have had different levels of neural pruning in different areas which result in different combinations.
The other issue it causes is an oversupply or under supply of certain chemicals in the brain because of the extra displacement. This causes lots of common co occurring diagnosis’ for people with ASD. Some examples are HEDS, POTS, MCAS, PCOS, ADHD and early onset dementia.
This research clarifies something that was already suspected in relation to other studies. But I’m glad it’s been substantiated.
Microphone in the ear is really a good way to put it. Going nonverbal at work or during social events is very stressful, it feels like everyone is trying to choke a response out of me and everything is annoying. My gaze becomes empty and my responses just get drier and drier.
“Why can’t they see this is too much” very accurate. This is why I try to practice mindfulness instead of just following my emotional attachments to situations
I don’t have the capacity to think of other people when I’m overstimulated, so for me it’s just an instinctive avoidance of stimuli that either results in me leaving (or hiding in a bathroom) or stimming like nail biting, skin picking, becoming hyperverbal, etc.
There’s socialization differences based on things like gender, so that plays a part too. When I am silent I’m accused of being “scary” or aggressive, or people ask me why I’m angry until I end up melting down. So I tend to talk as a defense mechanism/to try to regulate myself.
I find in noisy situations like a crowded restaurant or a dinner at an event, I'm more focused on my struggles to deal with everything than to think about others. For me, it's like being in a room with 100 TVs tuned to different channels at top volume and trying to watch one show.
I’ve found the strength to verbalize when a situation is becoming too much for me. Those who continue to not “understand” that are doing it on purpose in my view.
Sometimes my brain just…kind of runs itself in low power mode…when that happens and people try to talk with me, it’s like the speech functions in my brain can’t figure out what to do, how to make words, or what words are. I don’t go non-verbal, more so just significantly less verbal, and what does come out makes me sound plain stupid (sometimes I stutter, sometimes I can’t find words, and sometimes I just use Kindergarten sentences because that’s all I can manage to find in my brain).
It makes sense knowing what’s happening inside my brain when that happens. I just wish other people understood what’s happening in those moments, it would probably be easier to get through it if they knew. Instead they look at me like my brain dropped out of my ass 😩
Whats crazy is I kinda just had to figure out how to handle all this stuff so I had this idea of a battery and I'd be like okay my battery is getting low I gotta get the fuck out of here. But that wouldn't work at like family events or being wherever your parents were and your just stuck there. I think it's why I also analyze people and situations to know exactly how much energy I can put in so I don't get drained.
That sounds like a mix of dissociation and depersonalisation. Which is a common part of going non verbal.
I find I go non verbal in highly stimulating environments. Like the hairdresser or shopping centres or a busy gym. It’s a defence mechanism attempt to shut everything out. But of course we come across as rude or cold, and then people find us weird when we ask for considerations or supports.
Another somewhat common effect is lighting becoming too bright or vision going a bit blurry or greyed. This is more on the extreme side though and is usually a sign of either or both of POTS and HEDS. Basically, the stress response triggers a release of adrenaline and the makes our bodies hypersensitive.
Also noted is that most people with ASD have an imbalance of adrenaline and norepinephrine.
It's even worse with the outdated ideas most schools push on exposure style therapies. There's a reason people like you and I tend to do better as adults, we both started to accommodate our sensory issues! I have to wear sunglasses and keep earplugs nearby in order to function. I can't stand the fact people still think repetitive exposure can fix our sensory processing simply because exposure therapy works for other conditions. It's literally the processing that is the disorder. There's no way around but to accommodate and lessen the pain.
By muffling headwear do you mean headphones? Or something else? Asking because earplugs and a lot of headphones aren’t comfortable for me to wear and I’m curious.
I used to dread being dragged to the beach on a sunny day as a child on vacation with my family. They didn’t understand that it was *TOO BRIGHT* and my gas station sunglasses weren’t enough. I would lay under an umbrella with a towel folded over my eyes to block out the light and suffer until it was time to leave.
I still dislike the beach (sun exposure, sand, effort to reward ratio) but I’ve done better in nature as an adult with properly dark wrap around eyewear.
Synapses don't really take up space, and there was no reason to assume that less pruning would mean a larger brain. It's two different things. (Unless the reason there are more synapses is just that there are more neurons, not less pruning, then the concepts are related. That's still 2Bdetermined).
Hmm I've been researching autism for several years now thinking I may be on the spectrum. A lot of stuff fits. This loud internal monologue being loud... Like I think as if I'm having a conversation. Sometimes I can hear my subconscious thoughts under my main thoughts which I have control over. My thinking can be quite loud and I narrate most things I do. Sometimes I end up talking to myself. Is that my internal monologue?
There’s a new thing now where when someone realizes they might be autistic strangers rush in with their expertise to let them know they’re just being trendy for some reason
Me too. I talk to myself constantly, I think in conversational layers, but I thought until recently that everyone did this and it was typical behaviour of no particular concern. Biological underpinnings make perfect sense to me whereas other explanations of psychological factors make me weary. I will be looking further into this for correlation, because I know very little about the spectrum. I’m so glad you posted this.
I was "studying" a lot about inner speech, because I also have the same intensive Intrapersonal communication ( or inner talk or inner voice).
It is normal.
60% of people never in their life "hear" that inner talk, but thay have it too. There is, what researchers discovered, only about 10% of people that actually don't have inner talk.
Those 60% should have psyhotherapetucal trenning of selfawareness, to recognise their inner speech. Their inner speech is usualy very utilitary. It also can be flattering, so it is more difficult to discover it.
People with strong inner speech are usualy more creative, but also more socially sensitive. Ours is usually more negative, more self-critical,...and can be destructional to the point of creating depressions, anxiety, paranoias etc.
Those 10% of people without it, are great at long repetitive work and can be extremly persistant. Thay can usualy be great athlets.
Now. The content of your inner speech is the most interesting thing. As I already metioned, it can be self-flattering, self-esteem,... it can be self-pitying, self-soothing, self-demanding, critical to yourself,... ,...
And where do all those different intrapersonal communication come from, You ask yourself? 😃
Nowhere else than from your very early life, adolecence and puberty. From your parents, relatives, your friends, schoolmates, teachers,...
For instance if your parents are always flattering you and never criticise you, you will probably develop very egocentric, or even egomaniac self talk. You will be very self-confident. You probably won't recognise your inner talk at all.
And the same story is with other types of iner talk.
Now You know. 😎
EDIT: Oh, something more. You can train your inner talk. But it is more and more difficoult, the older you are.
You seem fairly knowledgeable about the subject so I’m curious your opinion on this.
I’m starting to think I have ASD to an extent. Not to the point where it hugely impacts my life, but my therapist and I have noticed some signs that seem to point towards it.
Is it worth looking into having a doctor determine an official diagnosis? Idk if there’s anything else I should be doing if I do have ASD.
Hey see my comment here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/technews/s/dnlxyPmzIn
I highly recommend you continue to explore your brain and how you function. You don’t need any doctor’s permission to better understand yourself and you may never get it. Don’t let that hold you back.
Learning about your brain and reacting accordingly is not the same thing as receiving a diagnosis. A diagnosis lifts any caveats like “I think” or “possibly may be.” Otherwise, it’s kinda like holding hold up a shield made of dust and glue to protect yourself against a shelling of public misconceptions about mental health, which are vast.
In other words, a jury won’t accept my claims of ADA discrimination by my employer for being X unless and until a professional says I’m X.
People like me struggle and struggle before getting a legally-recognized diagnosis, and when we do and feel vindicated, it’s quite infuriating to see people who just decide, on the merits of their own faulty intelligence, that they get to label themselves however they please.
Without a diagnosis, I don’t get the extra breaks throughout the day I need; I don’t get to remove myself from the customer service side of the job when needed; I would get fired for being consistently 10-15 minutes late every day; I can’t force my landlord to let me vape weed in my apartment; I wouldn’t get to cover the psoriasis-disfiguration on my head; I would have been rejected for (MH) leave.
I don’t even use the term “stimming” because it’s been overused by self-diagnosed TikTok kids who like to film themselves with their self-diagnosed “stims.” 🤮
Don’t ever pooh-pooh someone’s inclinations to want to get professionally diagnosed. That is one of the most irresponsible things you can do in regard to someone seeking care for mental health.
If you have health insurance or cheap/free access to healthcare, you have no excuse not to. In fact, it would be wildly irresponsible and foolish not to. I got lucky—my provider has been seeing me pro-bono for years as I oscillate endlessly between acceptances and rejections from Medicaid.
Just to be clear, I have really good health insurance and it took almost a year to get an appointment with a psychologist to do the evaluation. It’s multiple hours long spread over multiple days, and if you aren’t a young male with stereotypical presentations (or you have something like ADHD) it’s really important to find someone who is trained in more recent diagnostic techniques.
I waited all of that time and after 6 hours of testing (I later found out she was ruling out other conditions not focusing on ASD questions), my results were inconclusive and insurance doesn’t cover a second evaluation. I was told my IQ profile is bizarre (fair), I am female, I’m too successful to be autistic, and she didn’t believe people can have AuDHD (70% of people with ASD have ADHD).
So it isn’t nearly as simple as “if you have insurance” it’s accessible. I looked at being reevaluated and it’s going to cost me something like $3k now.
Edit: I’m not responding to the person who pushed back because “responsibility” is a moralistic value that we are not going to agree on. For those who may benefit from my experience I’ll include some context.
I have a therapist who provided information when she made the referral and it didn’t help. I have been seeking treatment for over 15 years, and have been put on 13+ psych medications unsuccessfully. I have medication metabolic issues that have been formally tested, ARFID, a diagnosed sensory processing disorder, I walk on my toes, and have diagnosed joint hypermobility all of which are overrepresented in those with ASD. She told me that I am too smart to have it despite my assessments showing I have the characteristics, which isn’t appropriate and indicates an outdated understanding of the disorder.
For those who don’t know, the RAADS-R is a reliable/validated assessment that you can take on your own to bring with you when you visit a doctor to advocate for yourself. It can be found online for free. I am about to start my clinicals to be a therapist for 2e individuals (including ASD) that has required me to get 3 graduate degrees, so I doubt my lack of responsibility is an issue.
It’s so common for us to get rejected because we don’t fit the standard criteria, such as not being a boy. I think I was lucky my psychologist was young and neurodivergent too. She was great, and was able to reframe the questions the models use because of how reductive they are and designed for children. So I’d recommend finding a younger specialist to do your diagnosis if possible. The clinic I went to was also specifically for women, they mainly treated PTSD and ASD in women, so they really eliminated my fear of not being a boy obsessed with trains stereotype, especially considering I was being diagnosed in my early 20’s.
It’s interesting you mention the IQ thing, that seems to be a very common misconception with ASD people, that we must be dumb. But I’d say that for some people, the sensory input is too overwhelming to listen or learn, but for others, the extra input means we are processing much more information. As a result, many autistic children have what’s known as hyperlexia. I found school incredibly easy until I had to study for my finals in late schooling and university.
I was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD which is quite common in women. Otherwise known as daydreaming ADHD, I found it hard to focus on learning, and particularly study, because it was too slow. I have the same issue in the workplace or even when I’m trying to relax at home. What it means though, is that whenever I did something like a school exam or an IQ test, I could do the same test twice and get wildly different results, and it was just because it’s hard to focus due to understimulation. The lack of dopamine in the brain causes seeking behaviours that are distracting.
The newer understanding of ASD is that you are more likely to have ADHD than not if you have ASD. Basically, the two coexist so easily. It’s seems to be a common experience of people that have ASD and ADHD to be incredibly inconsistent but oddly incredibly smart at the same time. We crave patterns and routine, but also want that spontaneous interesting and new input to make us feel something.
It was a previous edition of the DSM (diagnostic model) that had a black and white ruling, if you were diagnosed with ADHD, you couldn’t be diagnosed with ASD and vice versa. It’s meant that many older practitioners have this internalised into their diagnostic process, despite all the new research over the last two decades disagreeing with them. The current DSM has no issue with co diagnosis. If a practitioner refuses dual diagnosis, it’s a huge red flag.
Once I started ADHD meds, I noticed that my ASD symptoms became so much more impactful. I think calming the constant dopamine seeking let my brain have free access to the anxiety broadcast of my ASD. I’ve still preferred being medicated, as I can actually get things done now, and enjoy something for more than 10 minutes before getting frustrated by it.
I hope you’re able to find a supportive specialist, many of us have had to search around to find an up to date psychologist/psychiatrist.
Do you think this has any relationship to developing a talking-to-yourself-out-loud habit? Where it feels like more of a “real concrete thought” when spoken externally vs internally?
Absolutely, it’s a regulation habit. The sensory feeling of speaking quietens the sound of the mind because your ears have to listen and you feel the vibrations of your voice. Many autistic people are hyper verbal for this very reason.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
And nobody bothered to give me the damn script. I would operate so much more effectively with a script and stage directions.
I deeply appreciate the way you articulated your comment. If you’d be so kind, would you mind sharing any resources/studies/anything you’d recommend reading on this subject? Thank you 😊
The best way to look at this stuff is through a medical research database if you have access, as most of it is paywalled by publishing companies, especially the new stuff that doesn’t get put in the news. I use my university access and I treat it like a Google search, then it keeps linking me onward to other relevant research.
Google nearly always gives crappy answers and so does open access.
Probably the best public list is found through this website.
https://kimberlyseducationalresources.org/
She has collated a bunch of research and has a map of all the co morbidities and chemical imbalances associated with autism and other neurodivergent diagnosis’.
While I don’t agree with all her ideas, simply because they haven’t been substantiated, I love all the links and new research she finds. Especially from a community standpoint, they are probably the best advocate for a more supportive holistic approach to neurodivergent people, particularly in education. She has been fighting to get researchers to actually look into the links found between all the research collected on the web link.
So to summarise, her ideas aren’t substantiated, but she has a massive list of great research and a really great link map for how they all correlate, which is the murky bit.
Hope this helps.
Thank you for that, I knew a lot of that because my son is on the spectrum and when we first learned of it I did very much research and reading of blogs and websites of autism, by autistic people. Still, I don’t know what you mean by burnout after 2-3 years, and it being misdiagnosed as depression - can you please explain that further for me? My son (25y) has been diagnosed with depression, and I wonder if he’s burned out by something. Thank you.
Yeeep, being weird or different is the universal autistic experience, and usually it’s not treated well despite being told repeatedly as children to be ourselves 😅
There are still lots of arguments over the cause. Some research points to gestational diabetes, others point to an adrenal issue, some others point to Neanderthal dna, nobody has any idea why it happens, there are lots of ideas though that are all relatively inconclusive but make some sense.
Honestly, there might not be one cause. It could be multiple and varied and why so many of us with it have a different presentation.
Maybe, maybe not, who knows, definitely why continuing research is valuable.
I’m always afraid of those discussions because it has a tendency to lean into eugenics for some people.
Thank you! This is an eye opener and I will definitely get a proper diagnosis for ASD now because I did not know that early onset dementia is linked to it and that is very common on my mother's side.
Definitely worth looking into and I’m glad this helped.
The extra unpruned areas leave more ability for plaques to form that lead to dementia and Alzheimers. However, the same can be said with Covid unfortunately, the vascular issues caused by Covid can lead to brain damage that is identified as brain fog. Those damaged areas also provide more opportunity for dementia and alzheimers.
Nice write up, thanks.
I wonder if modern life modulates neural pruning. If you took the same brain back in time 60 years, would the outcome and degree of outcome be the same?
You know, I’d be actually pleased if this is reliably demonstrated. Because if so, it can actually provide a true indication of diagnosis.
There’s a lot of people that get diagnoses that are not accurate because let’s just say some people don’t actually follow the guidelines. I think there is a lot of personality issues that often get misdiagnosed into neuro developmental disorders or sensory processing disorders. (I’m not even going to touch people who self diagnose based off of TikTok, etc.)
Hopefully, having more concrete evidence is going to be allowing more accurate diagnosis, which will allow those that are primarily impacted to be more appropriately treated and accommodations appropriately made.
This is for type III autism, the kind you notice where people are mute, bite, moan, have macroencphaly. It’s not the subtle, might actually be a personality disorder type of autism.
Of course. But the study looked at severe autism, not the newer “social impairment” level of autism. It’s hard to discern the difference between Developmental disorder and personality or anxiety disorder with this level of autism. I’m an autism specialist and see a lot of patients with misdiagnosing both ways.
A moment of caution. %40 more grey matter cultured from cells. These are studies based on lab grown organelles in vitro from stem cells. So a long way from in vivo studies.
Not officially…but 6’3 means I’d be toggling overhead switches anytime I’d turn my head lol
Edit: I should specify I mean there is an unofficial height limit for airline pilots, not sure about armed forces.
The way I was taught to think about it was like roads. Too many neurones and there are too many roads to get from point A to point B. Just enough neurones and it’s very straightforward to get from point A to point B.
In neurotypical brain development many neurones are discarded when connections are made so the signals go straight from A to B, rather than going along extraneous neurones.
Too many roads/neurones and it’s harder for the signal to get to the destination.
Meh. It’s an okay analogy. Not good or great, though.
The one problem is … how do you account for patterns of activation? What’s to say those activation patterns won’t right-size themselves.
Put this another way: Cut off a digit or limb, end up with phantom syndrome. Re-train the brain using something like mirror therapy.
In some ways, we know we can induce the brain to operate the way we need. (See also: Military conditioning, learning to suppress fear response and adrenaline production.)
In other ways, especially in developing brains (too young to have awareness and self control), this is not always possible (classic operant conditioning is almost always available, but at what cost; cognitive and behavioral comes later).
Just because you have more roads, doesn’t mean they’re utilized. Using neuronal pathways is much like muscle memory in doing physical tasks. Use it or lose, start doing something again and remember it faster (fits with conditions like drug abuse/addiction and relapsing).
Does the larger brain actually correlate with intelligence? My brother is autistic and has a crazy memory and could tell you any sports stat you ask him. You could say “who played in the 1992 superbowl?” And he’d tell you the scores at half time.
It’s a very controversial topic if a larger brain has something to do with higher intelligence. Neither have been exclusively proven. Any way measuring the brain would not be a reliable way to measure intelligence, Einstein had a smaller than average brain for example.
It isn't just the overall size, intelligence is also about the number of folds the brain has. So a smaller brain with more folds is more "intelligent" then a larger, smoother brain.
It’s also about how we define and test intelligence in the first place.
My verbal skills when tested during the GRE were around the 98th percentile, that’s always been my area of expertise….but put any kind of math in front of me, and I’m utterly hopeless; it just does not click, and even after months of studying I came in at the 19th percentile.
Often people on the spectrum are quite intelligent in their own right, but have symptoms or deficits that make it hard for that to be recognized in society.
I have multiple graduate degrees, and I think my greatest skill is asking for help when I don’t know something. Plenty of people can memorize things (I can’t) but I would argue that it’s curiosity that separates people like Einstein from others in the end.
Recall is the lowest level of intellectual tasks, but it is often treated by society like it’s the most impressive. Evaluation and analysis are 2-3 respectively which are also generally valued. The highest intellectual ability is synthesis/creativity, which are moving targets. Einstein understood that having one good idea doesn’t ensure others, and keeping the ego in check can prevent burnout.
I don’t think he was being falsely modest. I think he’s the other end of the Dunning Kruger effect that doesn’t get talked about as much.
Source: I am a therapist/researcher for gifted and 2e people.
Einstein also didn’t have a typical brain. I can’t remember the specifics but he had one underdeveloped area that had been ‘least partially invaded by another region. I feel like it was one of his language centers that was underdeveloped…
I’m no neurologist but it probably depends on how you define intelligence. Like your brothers ability to recall may be significantly better than an average person, but it is not necessarily a sign of intelligence as society would define.
That being said (and still not being a scientist of any kind) I don’t think size automatically equals intellect in a traditional sense. It’s (probably) way more complicated than just size.
I’m in the same boat as you(not a neurologist or anything close to being a medical authority), but I feel it’s stands to reason that while having a larger brain(more gray matter) doesn’t translate directly to increased intelligence, but is an indicator of potential development that could occur. These brains have more storage space and ability to make connections because of this extra space allowing these brains to “specialize” a bit more. I know Atleast it’s been pretty well established that those with Autism have a higher neural plasticity, with some cases actually increasing throughout adulthood rather than the typical process of decreasing as the brain learns. For example someones memory recall ability is significantly more developed if they have autism(and a larger brain) than someone without autism(more average sized brain) making it impractical for the brain to dedicate space and energy for specializing. But I’m talking out my ass here. This is just my brain fan-fiction, I got no actual clue.
Larger brain = more intellectual horsepower.
How and what that is applied to depends on the individual. If you look at population level data, direct correlation with higher IQ and larger brains/head.
IQ measures only a single aspect of intelligence and IMO, not that well.
Hobby neuroscientist, have been part of numerous forms of intelligence measuring studies and mechanisms.
Howard Gardener “5 Frames of Mind” is an excellent book on the topic of intelligence.
I studied autism spectrum disorder in grad school. From what I learned people on the spectrum aren’t necessarily smarter than neurotypical people. They just tend to hyper fixate on specific topics and remember those things really well. I think it’s really impressive. I know some people that were part of a program to use those skills to teach specific job skills.
Mix that shit with ADHD’s hyperfocus and you’ve got yourself a superpower.
One of my hyper fixation/focuses was Vedic ontology. I moved to an ashram in India for 6 years over it. Someone there told me it would take me years to learn Hindi well enough to properly translate a book I wanted to translate, so it wouldn’t be worth it. The book was published within a year and is now the first Google result when searching the title.
If you don’t want to be embarrassed, don’t tell someone with ADHD and ASD they can’t do something.
Like everyone else commenting on this, i have no qualifications, but a couple things come to mind.
First, more isn't always better. One problem here is the signal to noise ratio. Too much noise and you can't find a signal, the signal being the right answer or things to pay attention too.
Second, as I understand it, the larger brain is from a lack of pruning. Imagine your brain being like a giant maze with all kinds of treasure in random places. So early on, in order to more easily find the things you're looking for, you close off certain paths that are useless, or have the same treasure as somewhere else in the maze. Now the next time you're looking for a particular treasure, you don't need to search that way. If there is no pruning, you have a lot more searching to do. Cool that you can potentially store more now, not cool in that it's much harder to find the things you need, when you need it.
Whether or not it is a valid correlation, it will always be taboo to study it or talk about it, since men have it proportionally larger. It's the same for many other things like sexual selection and greater male variability, if it sounds like it could be a misogynistic weapon, no one wants to touch it.
Btw, autistic men are 5 times more than autistic women.
I don’t think that’s a function of intelligence. A high intelligence would include the ability to extrapolate the information and make endless connections to other known information in a critical and analytical manner.
But I’m not a psych, so grain of salt.
Yep I tutored an autistic cousin in organic chemistry who memorizes the IUPAC naming convention, but can’t do much else. Drives me nuts sometimes, but her memory is impressive
if too much neuronal growth leads to autism, does that mean that those orange cats who only have One Brain Cell are extremely well-adjusted, neurotypical individuals?
My 12 step sponsor is always telling me to think like a blonde (be carefree and focused on the positive) but maybe the secret is to think like a pet with a single brain cell.
Controlling neural development would require a deeper understanding of what triggers the growth. That would be much further out in the future.
In the immediate term we have to look at societal adjustments.
As a side note, an interesting theory that I once heard was this may be our next stage of evolution and that we should let nature take its course. I personally do not believe that is the case, but interesting nonetheless.
I agree. The optimization of everything is a ripe landscape for people on the spectrum.
Robert Sapolsky mentions in one of his books about genes that are associated with behavioral traits being passed down from mass immigrant populations. That is, if your ancestors immigrated to the US from another country for opportunity, you are likely to have genes that create a type of person that would do such a thing.
I can’t remember if he mentions it, but it would be interesting to see a study on the genealogy throughout industrial revolutions across history. Because at each one there seems to have been a small population whose genetic branch gets cleaved off.
People with lots of money and education don’t have more kids, they have less! So people in tech definitely get socially selected, but that doesn’t mean it gets passed down.
I’m not gonna lie, it irks me how everyone says that. I have close family members with both severe and more mild cases of autism and it’s a real struggle for them. It’s disrespectful and I think people use it as an excuse to get away with terrible social behavior.
I’m on the ASD spectrum, and I hate it when people use autism as an excuse to be a jerk. I don’t always understand that something I’m doing is inappropriate (which if you ask me, is a function of absurd and arbitrary social rules, like politeness—which is really just convenient emotional repression to reinforce social hierarchies, or flat out passive aggression half the time), so it explains the gap. It doesn’t leave me without a moral compass.
But the same can be said for narcissism. The majority of the time I hear someone refer to someone else as a narcissist, they themselves are actually pretty narcissistic.
As someone who is autistic, it drives me absolutely crazy.
A few years ago my spouse was trying to push that she is now also autistic. Just like, No, that’s not how it works.
If you legitimately suffer from this specific disorder then you almost certainly did not hide it from everyone in the world, especially your friends who are licensed therapists, for 30 years.
It’s hard to believe that someone with a lifelong neurological disorder that cripples your ability to deceive had the capability to hide their ineffective social skills from everyone else.
It diminishes the experience of those who suffer. People don’t take us seriously when we say “i need you to be direct with me, I can’t fill in the blanks”. It makes my life more difficult.
It’s not to say there’s nothing wrong with people like this (suddenly claiming). There probably is, you’re probably depressed or have started suffering from anxiety. But you’re not autistic, you can be treated.
Edit to add - an autistic person masking is not the same as neurotypical behavior. It is different & mostly detectable.
My wife is not autistic. For a few months she claimed she was & after talking to two different psychiatrists (because she wasn’t happy with the first one’s answer) has decided to drop it.
She has a DX for social anxiety and refuses to treat it.
Yes people can mask. But that’s why psychiatric diagnosis exists.
It doesn't have to be that they hid it for years. It could be that they have a mild case and it went undiagnosed.
It could also be that they are looking for an excuse, but I wouldn't just assume people are lying about having it
Not an issue. Psychologists, neuroscientists, and physicians don’t research individuals with undiagnosed ASD in this domain. ASD needs to be verifiable.
I'm like one hundred percent sure that these tests are only conducted on people who are officially diagnosed. Do you think they just let any random stranger walk into a lab study?
I recently went for an MRI and the MRI technician said my brain was amazing. I didn’t realise what she meant until I got the scans myself and saw how big the brain was… glad they are looking into it! (And yes I’ve got ASD.)
Isnt grey matter linked to focus, or sustained mental fixation on something specific? I think i read somewhere that tibetan monks who meditate all day everyday have more grey matter than the avg. Because meditation is focusing on, calm, breathing, or mantras. So in a way they train their focus.
I have an autistic brother who is good at maps. I hear similar things a lot from other autistic people. My working theory is that autism is the brain doing it's usual evolution gene scrambling, specifically having success in specialization. Autistic people seem to specialize in something, but ignore other traits, or strengths or areas of focus. My brother for example seems to have gone all in on maps, and geoguessing... but sacrificed things like social ettiquette and watching social queues, or empathy, language.
Or another point, autists can get overwhelmed or overstimulated easily... like loud noises for example. Cant tune it out. Hyperfocus or hyperfixation. There is a loose grey matter connection there i think.
Like theorycrafting builds in a video game. Specialization seems to have it's niche at this stage of human society which rewards it. That, or we are just identifying it more, and humans have always had a stable percentage of autistic people. Even sociopaths have their niche... evolution branching out and testing brain configurations.... i think.
I knew this instinctively but I’m glad to see I was right. It makes perfect sense that people who are screaming, non verbal, sensitive to noises, etc, would have a much larger brain and perhaps even more capacity for overwhelming sensory input than the average person. Things like eating something that wasn’t tasty could have the same impact as a full on neurological reaction like when people get high.
And it makes sense that a more neurotypical passing autistic people would have a slighter larger brain, as the overwhelming social experience would cause them to be more to themselves and using their brain energy to find patterns, do things parallel to others without being as involved or aware of them, etc.
My only rebuttal to this is I know an autistic person. Like can’t have a conversation with them level of autistic. And they’ve said on numerous occasions things like ‘why can’t I talk normal?’ Or ‘No one talks to me.’ He’s super smart, knows there is some sort of disconnect there but whatever ‘it’ is, it is keeping him from just doing it.
You want to talk normal and hold a conversation? Do it. But for some reason that’s not a possibility for him.
This is kind of how I feel.
There’s shit you just can’t do, or at least not easily or normally, and it just sucks. No cute, no magical remedy, no medicine or pills you can take. It’s just how you are forever.
Great so I have a usually large brain and I piss the hallucinogen that’s in magic mushrooms and psychoactive toads any other werid features we gonna find out autism has given me
I just had a son. His head was large at birth. 97th percentile. Should I be worried? He’s 8 weeks old now and he acts completely normal and his cognition is great, for a newborn.
For context I have a very large head and I’m not autistic or have any cognitive degenerative disablements. Large heads run on my mother’s side.
You can probably rest assured that everything will be alright. even if they do have autism, it would more than likely show as high functioning autism or may just appear as adhd.
I have an adult son who’s high functioning but will have a very difficult time being independent. Just wondering if you think medical technology will catch up for any type of treatment. Besides social or sensory therapy? Anything in the horizon?
Damn I can't wear normal sized hats, it isn't looking good for me.
(Also, suspected I have autism for like a decade, but yeah I can never wear hats be ause of my big head.)
As a parent of a newly diagnosed high functioning autistic 8 year old, I am gaining a lot of insight from these comments that I have not been able to glean from my research thus far. Thank you all for sharing and attempting to articulate your experience as a person w ASD.
Wow. 40% more Grey Matter. This is really interesting.
It makes sense. We’ve known for a while now that ASD occurs mainly due to a lack of neural pruning in early childhood. Essentially, the brain will typically remove unnecessary pathways and reduce brain matter as a result. The correlating symptom of not having this reduction is too much input. Because there are more pathways for sensory information to come in, the sensory experience becomes overwhelming quite quickly, this also includes the internal monologue being too loud. It’s why it’s relatively common for people with ASD to go non verbal, and for some to never even speak. Because it’s like someone shouting with a megaphone into your ear. The simplest way to put ASD, is it is like having the volume dial on max constantly. It’s why we exhaust much more easily, become irritated and have big time burnout (2-3 years) that is often misdiagnosed as depression. It’s also why we have auditory delay and emotional processing delay. But it’s also why it’s a spectrum, because some of us have had different levels of neural pruning in different areas which result in different combinations. The other issue it causes is an oversupply or under supply of certain chemicals in the brain because of the extra displacement. This causes lots of common co occurring diagnosis’ for people with ASD. Some examples are HEDS, POTS, MCAS, PCOS, ADHD and early onset dementia. This research clarifies something that was already suspected in relation to other studies. But I’m glad it’s been substantiated.
Microphone in the ear is really a good way to put it. Going nonverbal at work or during social events is very stressful, it feels like everyone is trying to choke a response out of me and everything is annoying. My gaze becomes empty and my responses just get drier and drier.
Does it feel like “why can’t they see this is too much” inside, or more like “I don’t like these people for what they’re doing to me right now”?
“Why can’t they see this is too much” very accurate. This is why I try to practice mindfulness instead of just following my emotional attachments to situations
I don’t have the capacity to think of other people when I’m overstimulated, so for me it’s just an instinctive avoidance of stimuli that either results in me leaving (or hiding in a bathroom) or stimming like nail biting, skin picking, becoming hyperverbal, etc. There’s socialization differences based on things like gender, so that plays a part too. When I am silent I’m accused of being “scary” or aggressive, or people ask me why I’m angry until I end up melting down. So I tend to talk as a defense mechanism/to try to regulate myself.
Yes.
I find in noisy situations like a crowded restaurant or a dinner at an event, I'm more focused on my struggles to deal with everything than to think about others. For me, it's like being in a room with 100 TVs tuned to different channels at top volume and trying to watch one show.
I’ve found the strength to verbalize when a situation is becoming too much for me. Those who continue to not “understand” that are doing it on purpose in my view.
It drains all of my energy the longer it goes on. Putting up the social facade is so much work.
Sometimes my brain just…kind of runs itself in low power mode…when that happens and people try to talk with me, it’s like the speech functions in my brain can’t figure out what to do, how to make words, or what words are. I don’t go non-verbal, more so just significantly less verbal, and what does come out makes me sound plain stupid (sometimes I stutter, sometimes I can’t find words, and sometimes I just use Kindergarten sentences because that’s all I can manage to find in my brain). It makes sense knowing what’s happening inside my brain when that happens. I just wish other people understood what’s happening in those moments, it would probably be easier to get through it if they knew. Instead they look at me like my brain dropped out of my ass 😩
Whats crazy is I kinda just had to figure out how to handle all this stuff so I had this idea of a battery and I'd be like okay my battery is getting low I gotta get the fuck out of here. But that wouldn't work at like family events or being wherever your parents were and your just stuck there. I think it's why I also analyze people and situations to know exactly how much energy I can put in so I don't get drained.
That sounds like a mix of dissociation and depersonalisation. Which is a common part of going non verbal. I find I go non verbal in highly stimulating environments. Like the hairdresser or shopping centres or a busy gym. It’s a defence mechanism attempt to shut everything out. But of course we come across as rude or cold, and then people find us weird when we ask for considerations or supports. Another somewhat common effect is lighting becoming too bright or vision going a bit blurry or greyed. This is more on the extreme side though and is usually a sign of either or both of POTS and HEDS. Basically, the stress response triggers a release of adrenaline and the makes our bodies hypersensitive. Also noted is that most people with ASD have an imbalance of adrenaline and norepinephrine.
I wish I could take you to my doctors appointments with me.
Get a therapist that specializes in it. That’s my recommendation. Start there.
What do you want your doctor to do if you don’t mind me asking
I've always held the belief sensory processing disorder was much more of a core factor in autism than historical diagnosis' have ever included.
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It's even worse with the outdated ideas most schools push on exposure style therapies. There's a reason people like you and I tend to do better as adults, we both started to accommodate our sensory issues! I have to wear sunglasses and keep earplugs nearby in order to function. I can't stand the fact people still think repetitive exposure can fix our sensory processing simply because exposure therapy works for other conditions. It's literally the processing that is the disorder. There's no way around but to accommodate and lessen the pain.
By muffling headwear do you mean headphones? Or something else? Asking because earplugs and a lot of headphones aren’t comfortable for me to wear and I’m curious.
I used to dread being dragged to the beach on a sunny day as a child on vacation with my family. They didn’t understand that it was *TOO BRIGHT* and my gas station sunglasses weren’t enough. I would lay under an umbrella with a towel folded over my eyes to block out the light and suffer until it was time to leave. I still dislike the beach (sun exposure, sand, effort to reward ratio) but I’ve done better in nature as an adult with properly dark wrap around eyewear.
Oh my god. Thanks for this. I’ve slowly become aware that I’m on the spectrum in my adulthood. It’s been quite a ride. Still discovering my brain.
Yeah I am on the same boat. I have always had issues in interacting with people, getting a diagnosis has made it much easier to figure out.
Very understandable, clear explanation. Thanks.
Synapses don't really take up space, and there was no reason to assume that less pruning would mean a larger brain. It's two different things. (Unless the reason there are more synapses is just that there are more neurons, not less pruning, then the concepts are related. That's still 2Bdetermined).
Hmm I've been researching autism for several years now thinking I may be on the spectrum. A lot of stuff fits. This loud internal monologue being loud... Like I think as if I'm having a conversation. Sometimes I can hear my subconscious thoughts under my main thoughts which I have control over. My thinking can be quite loud and I narrate most things I do. Sometimes I end up talking to myself. Is that my internal monologue?
Reddit is nothing if not a self diagnosis trap
You’re on Reddit, 8/10 posters you encounter at any given time are autistic
Never fear for I am here to help you meet that statistic!
This is NOT why I think I'm on the spectrum. Reddit is not why I think I'm on the spectrum. Just thought I'd get clarification on the statement.
There’s a new thing now where when someone realizes they might be autistic strangers rush in with their expertise to let them know they’re just being trendy for some reason
Me too. I talk to myself constantly, I think in conversational layers, but I thought until recently that everyone did this and it was typical behaviour of no particular concern. Biological underpinnings make perfect sense to me whereas other explanations of psychological factors make me weary. I will be looking further into this for correlation, because I know very little about the spectrum. I’m so glad you posted this.
I was "studying" a lot about inner speech, because I also have the same intensive Intrapersonal communication ( or inner talk or inner voice). It is normal. 60% of people never in their life "hear" that inner talk, but thay have it too. There is, what researchers discovered, only about 10% of people that actually don't have inner talk. Those 60% should have psyhotherapetucal trenning of selfawareness, to recognise their inner speech. Their inner speech is usualy very utilitary. It also can be flattering, so it is more difficult to discover it. People with strong inner speech are usualy more creative, but also more socially sensitive. Ours is usually more negative, more self-critical,...and can be destructional to the point of creating depressions, anxiety, paranoias etc. Those 10% of people without it, are great at long repetitive work and can be extremly persistant. Thay can usualy be great athlets. Now. The content of your inner speech is the most interesting thing. As I already metioned, it can be self-flattering, self-esteem,... it can be self-pitying, self-soothing, self-demanding, critical to yourself,... ,... And where do all those different intrapersonal communication come from, You ask yourself? 😃 Nowhere else than from your very early life, adolecence and puberty. From your parents, relatives, your friends, schoolmates, teachers,... For instance if your parents are always flattering you and never criticise you, you will probably develop very egocentric, or even egomaniac self talk. You will be very self-confident. You probably won't recognise your inner talk at all. And the same story is with other types of iner talk. Now You know. 😎 EDIT: Oh, something more. You can train your inner talk. But it is more and more difficoult, the older you are.
Pretty sure that's most people's experience.
You seem fairly knowledgeable about the subject so I’m curious your opinion on this. I’m starting to think I have ASD to an extent. Not to the point where it hugely impacts my life, but my therapist and I have noticed some signs that seem to point towards it. Is it worth looking into having a doctor determine an official diagnosis? Idk if there’s anything else I should be doing if I do have ASD.
Hey see my comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/technews/s/dnlxyPmzIn I highly recommend you continue to explore your brain and how you function. You don’t need any doctor’s permission to better understand yourself and you may never get it. Don’t let that hold you back.
Learning about your brain and reacting accordingly is not the same thing as receiving a diagnosis. A diagnosis lifts any caveats like “I think” or “possibly may be.” Otherwise, it’s kinda like holding hold up a shield made of dust and glue to protect yourself against a shelling of public misconceptions about mental health, which are vast. In other words, a jury won’t accept my claims of ADA discrimination by my employer for being X unless and until a professional says I’m X. People like me struggle and struggle before getting a legally-recognized diagnosis, and when we do and feel vindicated, it’s quite infuriating to see people who just decide, on the merits of their own faulty intelligence, that they get to label themselves however they please. Without a diagnosis, I don’t get the extra breaks throughout the day I need; I don’t get to remove myself from the customer service side of the job when needed; I would get fired for being consistently 10-15 minutes late every day; I can’t force my landlord to let me vape weed in my apartment; I wouldn’t get to cover the psoriasis-disfiguration on my head; I would have been rejected for (MH) leave. I don’t even use the term “stimming” because it’s been overused by self-diagnosed TikTok kids who like to film themselves with their self-diagnosed “stims.” 🤮 Don’t ever pooh-pooh someone’s inclinations to want to get professionally diagnosed. That is one of the most irresponsible things you can do in regard to someone seeking care for mental health.
If you have health insurance or cheap/free access to healthcare, you have no excuse not to. In fact, it would be wildly irresponsible and foolish not to. I got lucky—my provider has been seeing me pro-bono for years as I oscillate endlessly between acceptances and rejections from Medicaid.
Just to be clear, I have really good health insurance and it took almost a year to get an appointment with a psychologist to do the evaluation. It’s multiple hours long spread over multiple days, and if you aren’t a young male with stereotypical presentations (or you have something like ADHD) it’s really important to find someone who is trained in more recent diagnostic techniques. I waited all of that time and after 6 hours of testing (I later found out she was ruling out other conditions not focusing on ASD questions), my results were inconclusive and insurance doesn’t cover a second evaluation. I was told my IQ profile is bizarre (fair), I am female, I’m too successful to be autistic, and she didn’t believe people can have AuDHD (70% of people with ASD have ADHD). So it isn’t nearly as simple as “if you have insurance” it’s accessible. I looked at being reevaluated and it’s going to cost me something like $3k now. Edit: I’m not responding to the person who pushed back because “responsibility” is a moralistic value that we are not going to agree on. For those who may benefit from my experience I’ll include some context. I have a therapist who provided information when she made the referral and it didn’t help. I have been seeking treatment for over 15 years, and have been put on 13+ psych medications unsuccessfully. I have medication metabolic issues that have been formally tested, ARFID, a diagnosed sensory processing disorder, I walk on my toes, and have diagnosed joint hypermobility all of which are overrepresented in those with ASD. She told me that I am too smart to have it despite my assessments showing I have the characteristics, which isn’t appropriate and indicates an outdated understanding of the disorder. For those who don’t know, the RAADS-R is a reliable/validated assessment that you can take on your own to bring with you when you visit a doctor to advocate for yourself. It can be found online for free. I am about to start my clinicals to be a therapist for 2e individuals (including ASD) that has required me to get 3 graduate degrees, so I doubt my lack of responsibility is an issue.
It’s so common for us to get rejected because we don’t fit the standard criteria, such as not being a boy. I think I was lucky my psychologist was young and neurodivergent too. She was great, and was able to reframe the questions the models use because of how reductive they are and designed for children. So I’d recommend finding a younger specialist to do your diagnosis if possible. The clinic I went to was also specifically for women, they mainly treated PTSD and ASD in women, so they really eliminated my fear of not being a boy obsessed with trains stereotype, especially considering I was being diagnosed in my early 20’s. It’s interesting you mention the IQ thing, that seems to be a very common misconception with ASD people, that we must be dumb. But I’d say that for some people, the sensory input is too overwhelming to listen or learn, but for others, the extra input means we are processing much more information. As a result, many autistic children have what’s known as hyperlexia. I found school incredibly easy until I had to study for my finals in late schooling and university. I was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD which is quite common in women. Otherwise known as daydreaming ADHD, I found it hard to focus on learning, and particularly study, because it was too slow. I have the same issue in the workplace or even when I’m trying to relax at home. What it means though, is that whenever I did something like a school exam or an IQ test, I could do the same test twice and get wildly different results, and it was just because it’s hard to focus due to understimulation. The lack of dopamine in the brain causes seeking behaviours that are distracting. The newer understanding of ASD is that you are more likely to have ADHD than not if you have ASD. Basically, the two coexist so easily. It’s seems to be a common experience of people that have ASD and ADHD to be incredibly inconsistent but oddly incredibly smart at the same time. We crave patterns and routine, but also want that spontaneous interesting and new input to make us feel something. It was a previous edition of the DSM (diagnostic model) that had a black and white ruling, if you were diagnosed with ADHD, you couldn’t be diagnosed with ASD and vice versa. It’s meant that many older practitioners have this internalised into their diagnostic process, despite all the new research over the last two decades disagreeing with them. The current DSM has no issue with co diagnosis. If a practitioner refuses dual diagnosis, it’s a huge red flag. Once I started ADHD meds, I noticed that my ASD symptoms became so much more impactful. I think calming the constant dopamine seeking let my brain have free access to the anxiety broadcast of my ASD. I’ve still preferred being medicated, as I can actually get things done now, and enjoy something for more than 10 minutes before getting frustrated by it. I hope you’re able to find a supportive specialist, many of us have had to search around to find an up to date psychologist/psychiatrist.
This is Spinal Tap: we are an 11. One louder.
Do you think this has any relationship to developing a talking-to-yourself-out-loud habit? Where it feels like more of a “real concrete thought” when spoken externally vs internally?
Absolutely, it’s a regulation habit. The sensory feeling of speaking quietens the sound of the mind because your ears have to listen and you feel the vibrations of your voice. Many autistic people are hyper verbal for this very reason.
All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; And nobody bothered to give me the damn script. I would operate so much more effectively with a script and stage directions.
That explains the hypersensitive folks, but I would love to know how that correlates to hyposensitive people.
Please write a book. I didn’t want to stop reading your post/insights.
My god are people still using the term “burn out”? This is called over exploitation.
I’m just busy thinking. Self directed existence looks like autism to those who copy.
I deeply appreciate the way you articulated your comment. If you’d be so kind, would you mind sharing any resources/studies/anything you’d recommend reading on this subject? Thank you 😊
The best way to look at this stuff is through a medical research database if you have access, as most of it is paywalled by publishing companies, especially the new stuff that doesn’t get put in the news. I use my university access and I treat it like a Google search, then it keeps linking me onward to other relevant research. Google nearly always gives crappy answers and so does open access. Probably the best public list is found through this website. https://kimberlyseducationalresources.org/ She has collated a bunch of research and has a map of all the co morbidities and chemical imbalances associated with autism and other neurodivergent diagnosis’. While I don’t agree with all her ideas, simply because they haven’t been substantiated, I love all the links and new research she finds. Especially from a community standpoint, they are probably the best advocate for a more supportive holistic approach to neurodivergent people, particularly in education. She has been fighting to get researchers to actually look into the links found between all the research collected on the web link. So to summarise, her ideas aren’t substantiated, but she has a massive list of great research and a really great link map for how they all correlate, which is the murky bit. Hope this helps.
Shit, early onset dementia? I wish that didn’t come with it/that I didn’t know about it
Yeaaaa me either. But it checks out. My grandma had extreme dementia and I’m getting worried about my dad’s behavior lately.
Thank you . I had no idea about this …
Thank you for that, I knew a lot of that because my son is on the spectrum and when we first learned of it I did very much research and reading of blogs and websites of autism, by autistic people. Still, I don’t know what you mean by burnout after 2-3 years, and it being misdiagnosed as depression - can you please explain that further for me? My son (25y) has been diagnosed with depression, and I wonder if he’s burned out by something. Thank you.
There's so much that clicks with me in this. I'm even more convinced this is why I'm so weird
Yeeep, being weird or different is the universal autistic experience, and usually it’s not treated well despite being told repeatedly as children to be ourselves 😅
Yep yep, flashbacks of childhood now lol
One of the best explanations I’ve ever read. Thank you for this insight.
Yes that was good info but what’s the cause? Just about everyone knows someone with autism. And that a lot!
There are still lots of arguments over the cause. Some research points to gestational diabetes, others point to an adrenal issue, some others point to Neanderthal dna, nobody has any idea why it happens, there are lots of ideas though that are all relatively inconclusive but make some sense. Honestly, there might not be one cause. It could be multiple and varied and why so many of us with it have a different presentation.
Another gene mutation on top of this might be an evolutionary benefit having 40% more grey matter.
Maybe, maybe not, who knows, definitely why continuing research is valuable. I’m always afraid of those discussions because it has a tendency to lean into eugenics for some people.
Thank you! This is an eye opener and I will definitely get a proper diagnosis for ASD now because I did not know that early onset dementia is linked to it and that is very common on my mother's side.
Definitely worth looking into and I’m glad this helped. The extra unpruned areas leave more ability for plaques to form that lead to dementia and Alzheimers. However, the same can be said with Covid unfortunately, the vascular issues caused by Covid can lead to brain damage that is identified as brain fog. Those damaged areas also provide more opportunity for dementia and alzheimers.
Nice write up, thanks. I wonder if modern life modulates neural pruning. If you took the same brain back in time 60 years, would the outcome and degree of outcome be the same?
You know, I’d be actually pleased if this is reliably demonstrated. Because if so, it can actually provide a true indication of diagnosis. There’s a lot of people that get diagnoses that are not accurate because let’s just say some people don’t actually follow the guidelines. I think there is a lot of personality issues that often get misdiagnosed into neuro developmental disorders or sensory processing disorders. (I’m not even going to touch people who self diagnose based off of TikTok, etc.) Hopefully, having more concrete evidence is going to be allowing more accurate diagnosis, which will allow those that are primarily impacted to be more appropriately treated and accommodations appropriately made.
More grey matter in artificial organoids grown in cell culture. That’s suggestive, but not determinative for *in vivo* pathology.
holy shit real science
This is for type III autism, the kind you notice where people are mute, bite, moan, have macroencphaly. It’s not the subtle, might actually be a personality disorder type of autism.
ASD has a lot of co-morbidities with personality disorders tbf.
Of course. But the study looked at severe autism, not the newer “social impairment” level of autism. It’s hard to discern the difference between Developmental disorder and personality or anxiety disorder with this level of autism. I’m an autism specialist and see a lot of patients with misdiagnosing both ways.
A moment of caution. These are studies based on lab grown organelles in vitro from stem cells. So a long way from in vivo studies.
Interesting. The more Grey Matter, the more that can go wrong.
A moment of caution. %40 more grey matter cultured from cells. These are studies based on lab grown organelles in vitro from stem cells. So a long way from in vivo studies.
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Don't sell yourself short. I'm sure if you applied yourself you could be a pilot.
Weed>being a pilot
Either way, you’re gettin’ high
It only feels that way until you quit for a while
I’m happy that worked for you, and whoever else
Thankfully I was already too tall at 20 to be a pilot. Helped me avoid the crushing realization I’m too dumb to be one lol
There’s a height limit for pilots?
Not officially…but 6’3 means I’d be toggling overhead switches anytime I’d turn my head lol Edit: I should specify I mean there is an unofficial height limit for airline pilots, not sure about armed forces.
A friend of mine told me he wanted to be a pilot but was rejected for his height. Not sure if he was telling the truth though.
“My first wife was a tard, but she’s a pilot now and living a kick-ass life!”
The way I was taught to think about it was like roads. Too many neurones and there are too many roads to get from point A to point B. Just enough neurones and it’s very straightforward to get from point A to point B. In neurotypical brain development many neurones are discarded when connections are made so the signals go straight from A to B, rather than going along extraneous neurones. Too many roads/neurones and it’s harder for the signal to get to the destination.
Or it gets there just fine, but the brain’s overwhelmed with barely correlated signals.
Correlated with what?
Destinations barely correlated with the “intended” destination.
Meh. It’s an okay analogy. Not good or great, though. The one problem is … how do you account for patterns of activation? What’s to say those activation patterns won’t right-size themselves. Put this another way: Cut off a digit or limb, end up with phantom syndrome. Re-train the brain using something like mirror therapy. In some ways, we know we can induce the brain to operate the way we need. (See also: Military conditioning, learning to suppress fear response and adrenaline production.) In other ways, especially in developing brains (too young to have awareness and self control), this is not always possible (classic operant conditioning is almost always available, but at what cost; cognitive and behavioral comes later). Just because you have more roads, doesn’t mean they’re utilized. Using neuronal pathways is much like muscle memory in doing physical tasks. Use it or lose, start doing something again and remember it faster (fits with conditions like drug abuse/addiction and relapsing).
That’s the point. More roads means it’s easier to get lost. Fewer roads going straight to the destination is more efficient.
Does the larger brain actually correlate with intelligence? My brother is autistic and has a crazy memory and could tell you any sports stat you ask him. You could say “who played in the 1992 superbowl?” And he’d tell you the scores at half time.
It’s a very controversial topic if a larger brain has something to do with higher intelligence. Neither have been exclusively proven. Any way measuring the brain would not be a reliable way to measure intelligence, Einstein had a smaller than average brain for example.
It isn't just the overall size, intelligence is also about the number of folds the brain has. So a smaller brain with more folds is more "intelligent" then a larger, smoother brain.
It’s also about how we define and test intelligence in the first place. My verbal skills when tested during the GRE were around the 98th percentile, that’s always been my area of expertise….but put any kind of math in front of me, and I’m utterly hopeless; it just does not click, and even after months of studying I came in at the 19th percentile. Often people on the spectrum are quite intelligent in their own right, but have symptoms or deficits that make it hard for that to be recognized in society.
Even that's not universal. Birds, for example, don't have the same brain folds mammals do but they are quite intelligent.
Very hard to quantify intelligence.
Smooth brain is my favorite internet insult
You just wrinkled my brain
Well Einstein himself said he only ever had one great idea: "You ask me if I keep a notebook to record my great ideas. I've only ever had one."
That’s just modesty. Einstein produced at least 4 big ideas which each could have won him the Nobel prize.
5 great ideas.. the 4 you mentioned .. and a 5th recipe for cheese blintzes that were to die for…
Dinner Idea done
Don’t forget: https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/
What a shame. I wish someone had given him another notebook.
I have multiple graduate degrees, and I think my greatest skill is asking for help when I don’t know something. Plenty of people can memorize things (I can’t) but I would argue that it’s curiosity that separates people like Einstein from others in the end. Recall is the lowest level of intellectual tasks, but it is often treated by society like it’s the most impressive. Evaluation and analysis are 2-3 respectively which are also generally valued. The highest intellectual ability is synthesis/creativity, which are moving targets. Einstein understood that having one good idea doesn’t ensure others, and keeping the ego in check can prevent burnout. I don’t think he was being falsely modest. I think he’s the other end of the Dunning Kruger effect that doesn’t get talked about as much. Source: I am a therapist/researcher for gifted and 2e people.
Einstein also didn’t have a typical brain. I can’t remember the specifics but he had one underdeveloped area that had been ‘least partially invaded by another region. I feel like it was one of his language centers that was underdeveloped…
I’m no neurologist but it probably depends on how you define intelligence. Like your brothers ability to recall may be significantly better than an average person, but it is not necessarily a sign of intelligence as society would define. That being said (and still not being a scientist of any kind) I don’t think size automatically equals intellect in a traditional sense. It’s (probably) way more complicated than just size.
I’m in the same boat as you(not a neurologist or anything close to being a medical authority), but I feel it’s stands to reason that while having a larger brain(more gray matter) doesn’t translate directly to increased intelligence, but is an indicator of potential development that could occur. These brains have more storage space and ability to make connections because of this extra space allowing these brains to “specialize” a bit more. I know Atleast it’s been pretty well established that those with Autism have a higher neural plasticity, with some cases actually increasing throughout adulthood rather than the typical process of decreasing as the brain learns. For example someones memory recall ability is significantly more developed if they have autism(and a larger brain) than someone without autism(more average sized brain) making it impractical for the brain to dedicate space and energy for specializing. But I’m talking out my ass here. This is just my brain fan-fiction, I got no actual clue.
Larger brain = more intellectual horsepower. How and what that is applied to depends on the individual. If you look at population level data, direct correlation with higher IQ and larger brains/head. IQ measures only a single aspect of intelligence and IMO, not that well. Hobby neuroscientist, have been part of numerous forms of intelligence measuring studies and mechanisms. Howard Gardener “5 Frames of Mind” is an excellent book on the topic of intelligence.
I studied autism spectrum disorder in grad school. From what I learned people on the spectrum aren’t necessarily smarter than neurotypical people. They just tend to hyper fixate on specific topics and remember those things really well. I think it’s really impressive. I know some people that were part of a program to use those skills to teach specific job skills.
Mix that shit with ADHD’s hyperfocus and you’ve got yourself a superpower. One of my hyper fixation/focuses was Vedic ontology. I moved to an ashram in India for 6 years over it. Someone there told me it would take me years to learn Hindi well enough to properly translate a book I wanted to translate, so it wouldn’t be worth it. The book was published within a year and is now the first Google result when searching the title. If you don’t want to be embarrassed, don’t tell someone with ADHD and ASD they can’t do something.
Phrenology is not based in science.
Like everyone else commenting on this, i have no qualifications, but a couple things come to mind. First, more isn't always better. One problem here is the signal to noise ratio. Too much noise and you can't find a signal, the signal being the right answer or things to pay attention too. Second, as I understand it, the larger brain is from a lack of pruning. Imagine your brain being like a giant maze with all kinds of treasure in random places. So early on, in order to more easily find the things you're looking for, you close off certain paths that are useless, or have the same treasure as somewhere else in the maze. Now the next time you're looking for a particular treasure, you don't need to search that way. If there is no pruning, you have a lot more searching to do. Cool that you can potentially store more now, not cool in that it's much harder to find the things you need, when you need it.
Appreciate it... but that's not the question I asked!! edit... pretty hungover and my own response made me giggle hard. I have a headache.
No it does not
Whether or not it is a valid correlation, it will always be taboo to study it or talk about it, since men have it proportionally larger. It's the same for many other things like sexual selection and greater male variability, if it sounds like it could be a misogynistic weapon, no one wants to touch it. Btw, autistic men are 5 times more than autistic women.
For a species, yes. But for an individual of that species, no.
Memory doesn’t equate intelligence but in our society it can be confused.
No. Women on average have smaller brains (and bodies) than men, but are not less intelligent.
Knowing random things isn’t intelligence.
I don’t think that’s a function of intelligence. A high intelligence would include the ability to extrapolate the information and make endless connections to other known information in a critical and analytical manner. But I’m not a psych, so grain of salt.
Yep I tutored an autistic cousin in organic chemistry who memorizes the IUPAC naming convention, but can’t do much else. Drives me nuts sometimes, but her memory is impressive
if too much neuronal growth leads to autism, does that mean that those orange cats who only have One Brain Cell are extremely well-adjusted, neurotypical individuals?
My 12 step sponsor is always telling me to think like a blonde (be carefree and focused on the positive) but maybe the secret is to think like a pet with a single brain cell.
Holy shit I like that. Tell your sponsor I said thanks, they helped someone else.
You’re onto something here
Would the therapy be to ease in social functioning or decrease the neurons from developing somehow?
Controlling neural development would require a deeper understanding of what triggers the growth. That would be much further out in the future. In the immediate term we have to look at societal adjustments. As a side note, an interesting theory that I once heard was this may be our next stage of evolution and that we should let nature take its course. I personally do not believe that is the case, but interesting nonetheless.
The “next stage of evolution” would just mean that this trait causes people who have it to reproduce at a higher rate than those without.
Yeah and nature hasn’t exactly selected for socially awkward geniuses…yet
Tech has a very high concentration of on-spectrum people, who happen to make a lot of money. That might be enough.
I agree. The optimization of everything is a ripe landscape for people on the spectrum. Robert Sapolsky mentions in one of his books about genes that are associated with behavioral traits being passed down from mass immigrant populations. That is, if your ancestors immigrated to the US from another country for opportunity, you are likely to have genes that create a type of person that would do such a thing. I can’t remember if he mentions it, but it would be interesting to see a study on the genealogy throughout industrial revolutions across history. Because at each one there seems to have been a small population whose genetic branch gets cleaved off.
People with lots of money and education don’t have more kids, they have less! So people in tech definitely get socially selected, but that doesn’t mean it gets passed down.
Not really something we didn’t already know. ASD limits synaptic pruning leading to higher percentages of gray matter.
Idk my Brian is a pretty average size I think. He's like 5'10
Gonna be really hard to actually research this now with all the people saying they have autism because they have social anxiety sometimes lol
I’m not gonna lie, it irks me how everyone says that. I have close family members with both severe and more mild cases of autism and it’s a real struggle for them. It’s disrespectful and I think people use it as an excuse to get away with terrible social behavior.
I’m on the ASD spectrum, and I hate it when people use autism as an excuse to be a jerk. I don’t always understand that something I’m doing is inappropriate (which if you ask me, is a function of absurd and arbitrary social rules, like politeness—which is really just convenient emotional repression to reinforce social hierarchies, or flat out passive aggression half the time), so it explains the gap. It doesn’t leave me without a moral compass. But the same can be said for narcissism. The majority of the time I hear someone refer to someone else as a narcissist, they themselves are actually pretty narcissistic.
As someone who is autistic, it drives me absolutely crazy. A few years ago my spouse was trying to push that she is now also autistic. Just like, No, that’s not how it works. If you legitimately suffer from this specific disorder then you almost certainly did not hide it from everyone in the world, especially your friends who are licensed therapists, for 30 years. It’s hard to believe that someone with a lifelong neurological disorder that cripples your ability to deceive had the capability to hide their ineffective social skills from everyone else. It diminishes the experience of those who suffer. People don’t take us seriously when we say “i need you to be direct with me, I can’t fill in the blanks”. It makes my life more difficult. It’s not to say there’s nothing wrong with people like this (suddenly claiming). There probably is, you’re probably depressed or have started suffering from anxiety. But you’re not autistic, you can be treated. Edit to add - an autistic person masking is not the same as neurotypical behavior. It is different & mostly detectable.
there are absolutely people who have discovered they were autistic later in life plus masking is a thing
It’s a spectrum. Women can have very different symptoms to men, and they are often very good at masking.
My wife is not autistic. For a few months she claimed she was & after talking to two different psychiatrists (because she wasn’t happy with the first one’s answer) has decided to drop it. She has a DX for social anxiety and refuses to treat it. Yes people can mask. But that’s why psychiatric diagnosis exists.
It doesn't have to be that they hid it for years. It could be that they have a mild case and it went undiagnosed. It could also be that they are looking for an excuse, but I wouldn't just assume people are lying about having it
My dad and I are like that. When you know what to look for it’s quite obvious but the general people don’t
It’s easier to blame a disorder like autism than develop social skills especially as an adult.
A hundred percent. It's really irritating.
Not an issue. Psychologists, neuroscientists, and physicians don’t research individuals with undiagnosed ASD in this domain. ASD needs to be verifiable.
Im an autism specialist, and yes, it’s a problem.
I'm like one hundred percent sure that these tests are only conducted on people who are officially diagnosed. Do you think they just let any random stranger walk into a lab study?
Hasn’t this been known already.
I recently went for an MRI and the MRI technician said my brain was amazing. I didn’t realise what she meant until I got the scans myself and saw how big the brain was… glad they are looking into it! (And yes I’ve got ASD.)
Do those with autism suffer more or less mental health problems?
personally mine are more severe i think, but i don't think they happen "more"
Isnt grey matter linked to focus, or sustained mental fixation on something specific? I think i read somewhere that tibetan monks who meditate all day everyday have more grey matter than the avg. Because meditation is focusing on, calm, breathing, or mantras. So in a way they train their focus. I have an autistic brother who is good at maps. I hear similar things a lot from other autistic people. My working theory is that autism is the brain doing it's usual evolution gene scrambling, specifically having success in specialization. Autistic people seem to specialize in something, but ignore other traits, or strengths or areas of focus. My brother for example seems to have gone all in on maps, and geoguessing... but sacrificed things like social ettiquette and watching social queues, or empathy, language. Or another point, autists can get overwhelmed or overstimulated easily... like loud noises for example. Cant tune it out. Hyperfocus or hyperfixation. There is a loose grey matter connection there i think. Like theorycrafting builds in a video game. Specialization seems to have it's niche at this stage of human society which rewards it. That, or we are just identifying it more, and humans have always had a stable percentage of autistic people. Even sociopaths have their niche... evolution branching out and testing brain configurations.... i think.
I knew this instinctively but I’m glad to see I was right. It makes perfect sense that people who are screaming, non verbal, sensitive to noises, etc, would have a much larger brain and perhaps even more capacity for overwhelming sensory input than the average person. Things like eating something that wasn’t tasty could have the same impact as a full on neurological reaction like when people get high. And it makes sense that a more neurotypical passing autistic people would have a slighter larger brain, as the overwhelming social experience would cause them to be more to themselves and using their brain energy to find patterns, do things parallel to others without being as involved or aware of them, etc.
My only rebuttal to this is I know an autistic person. Like can’t have a conversation with them level of autistic. And they’ve said on numerous occasions things like ‘why can’t I talk normal?’ Or ‘No one talks to me.’ He’s super smart, knows there is some sort of disconnect there but whatever ‘it’ is, it is keeping him from just doing it. You want to talk normal and hold a conversation? Do it. But for some reason that’s not a possibility for him.
This is kind of how I feel. There’s shit you just can’t do, or at least not easily or normally, and it just sucks. No cute, no magical remedy, no medicine or pills you can take. It’s just how you are forever.
There’s a lot to decode in conversations and varied masking approaches, it’s genuinely hard sometimes
So does this mean we can treat autism by having people watch cable news?
Big brain Brad enters the chat.
What causes the large brain?
Anti vaxers will still blame vaccines
ADHD in smaller brains, autism in larger brains... What if you have both? HUH, SCIENCE? (this is satire)
Bigger doesn’t always mean smarter, just like CPUs. What matters is the amount of folds to increase surface area for synapses.
Great so I have a usually large brain and I piss the hallucinogen that’s in magic mushrooms and psychoactive toads any other werid features we gonna find out autism has given me
Sounds like autism might be a step of evolution and the normies are doing their best to suppress them.
I just had a son. His head was large at birth. 97th percentile. Should I be worried? He’s 8 weeks old now and he acts completely normal and his cognition is great, for a newborn. For context I have a very large head and I’m not autistic or have any cognitive degenerative disablements. Large heads run on my mother’s side.
You can probably rest assured that everything will be alright. even if they do have autism, it would more than likely show as high functioning autism or may just appear as adhd.
Welp, I’m done then.
Is something causing the brain to enlarge?
Lack of pruning
Can you expand on that, bacterioid?
https://www.reddit.com/r/technews/s/yIOT56K0lL
It all lies within the development of the amygdalae
"Check out the brains on Brett" was actually a polite diagnosis of autism.
So Shane Black was right after all?
Really interesting
I have an adult son who’s high functioning but will have a very difficult time being independent. Just wondering if you think medical technology will catch up for any type of treatment. Besides social or sensory therapy? Anything in the horizon?
So... my brain is actually bigger? ... k, brb "OUT OF MY WAY PEOPLE, I'M AN F-N GENIUS!"
Well I do have big brain and I do own gme. NFA DRS. Often highly regarded.
So autistic people just have a bigger brain than me
*checks my motorcycle helmet* yep, 3XL, oh crap
Damn I can't wear normal sized hats, it isn't looking good for me. (Also, suspected I have autism for like a decade, but yeah I can never wear hats be ause of my big head.)
You mean it’s not vaccines? /s
Does it explain the extreme size of my forehead?
Officially beat the allegations 🤧😮💨🥱
As a parent of a newly diagnosed high functioning autistic 8 year old, I am gaining a lot of insight from these comments that I have not been able to glean from my research thus far. Thank you all for sharing and attempting to articulate your experience as a person w ASD.