a way to understand the brain?

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So, I've been thinking about the possible reasons for resistance in the research community to thinking about autism as a neurological difference instead of a disease that needs to be cured (it's a long list).

One of the reasons is simply that any brain abnormality provides a productive avenue for scientists to learn more about the brain and how it works. If autism were no longer something to be cured, grants to study it would dry up along with the opportunity to learn all sorts of interesting things about the elusive mind-brain connection.

I don't mean to suggest that there is a big conspiracy among neuroscientists or anything like that, but I've read enough about evolutionary psychology to know that, all other things being equal, people are likely to choose the explanation that serves them best on a personal level. And then there's the fear of "the other" that even scientists aren't immune to--if a person is different, there must be something wrong with him or her. With organizations like Autism Speaks doing the real dirty work, it seems like there would be plenty of researchers who would be able and willing to carry on with the research as long as the grant money keeps coming in and the neurodiversity movement doesn't gain enough credibility that they can no longer look the other way. The cynic in me says that there are probably plenty more who would continue their research just as long as the money keeps coming in. It's a sad state of affairs in scientific publishing, these days.

Thoughts?

I think you may have a point. There is a lot of pressure from parents for a cure, though.. and that fuels a lot of these studies.

I wish they'd take all this money going into research and put it into services to help people who have ASD's function better in society.

Autism is a word without much meaning, but it does bring in the money for brain research.

To most of science, there is no mind, just a meatbag, no free will, just chemical interactions.

The latest research is showing a mind, and that it is plastic. PTSD, TBI, can be reversed.

Brain function can be enhanced, balanced, and it works.

ASDs cost a lot, research is a little, and for the future, important.

Neurodiversity calls for just giving up. Quit trying to understand, and just accept.

The Max Planck Institute publishing the Neanderthal Genome, shows we are not all one species, and that different is expected. Thoughts that the Han Chinese are a disease to be cured are suddnenly outdated, they are a Neanderthal line, to be understood.

For one, most Europeans process Math as words, the Chinese as pictures.

Getting past Autism Cures, we now have a much larger problem that deserves larger and better funded studies.

Science created it's own sad state of affairs, the disease/cure model, which is falling apart.

The latest view is there are 22 sub species out of Africa, and who knows how many in Africa.

I'm not sure that's an accurate description of the neurodiversity movement's aims. Characterizing it as such seems to be one of the primary reasons parents of low-functioning children with autism are so angry about it, and I don't blame them for not wanting to "just accept" the fact that their child is low functioning.

It's a shame the curebies refuse to see "high-functioning" as a desirable endpoint for treatment instead of demanding the unrealistic goal of "cookie-cutter normalcy." Maybe in the future, the DSM will get smart and classify this compulsion for conformity as the damaging disorder it is, but that would make entirely too much sense.

I can see both sides, the parents are speaking of what used to be the meaning of autism, and downright denounce Asperger's.

Asperger's is often Broader Autism Phenotype, the largest group, who are classed as NT. Geeky with quirks. It varies day by day, but they never present like the traditional autistic, the ones who get locked up for life, after they bankrupt their parents.

Parents here have said, if my child was Asperger's, HFA, I would be overjoyed, but that is not the case.

I have tried to sort this out for years, but one does grade into the other, and for all accounts, they are the same thing.

The good news is upcoming treatments work on both. A lot is early childhood, the largest gain for the cost, but some works on us old people. It is not just Autism, for one reason or another, areas of the brain just turn off, they can be restarted, then keep running.

It was developed through Autism Speaks grants, but seems to work on PTSD, and TBI.

It is like autism in that some brain centers are not running, some of us just never did have that wiring, but it is still there, and can be activated, and others shut down due to stress or injury, who used to have wider function, and it can be restored.

It may work on Depression, where the joy of living just slips away. Depression is the most common human ailment.

It is done using targeted magnetic fields that induce electrical activity into parts of the brain, that were dormant in scans. They become active.

In the bad old days many people like Electroconvulsive Shock Treatments. They reported the same, more even brain activity. It was crude, but it did have results.

There are also many cases of remission, sudden, hopeless one day, fully functional and aware the next.

Nothing about us seems set in stone. I think the whole drug route was wrong, it targeted a toxic result, in what was running. While it might surpress symptoms, it did so by making zombies.

While Autism is a cause, I would not think that the same treatment should not be used broadly, the quirky geeks may be getting by, but they are not getting the dates, making friends outside of video games, and trekie conventions, and for the general good of the species, we should increase their breeding.

While many AS, HFA pass in the NT world, they come up short personally, and that produces stress that can lead to other problems that NTs share.

I also think of NTs, our troops have been overworked, too long in the field, and I knew people who after two tours in Nam, just could not come down from the induced mental state and become people again.

I think we are on the verge of brain tuneups for everyone. Cure Math Phobia Now! Besides which, if told their brain has been defraged and optimised for Long Division, they will believe it.

It is real science, still in lab testing, brought to you by Autism Speaks, who if you will notice has studied drugs, and found that they do not work. Now they are looking at, does it take years on the couch to deal with common mental issues, lack of trust, which has become an epidemic, or could an hour in the lab with some magnets do the trick?

Programs for children are working, programs for adults are being developed, but these things need to be well tested before being broadly applied. It is coming!

The research was for Autism, but the knowledge developed works on humans.

We could all do with being ourselves, and a bit more human.

Well said, Inventor.

Brain tuneups and tolerance for everyone!