The engineering of the NeuroTypical brain, Autistic brain.

Page 1 of 3 [ 46 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2, 3  Next


Do you understand the differences between the "autistic brain" and the "neurotypical brain"?
Yes, after I read this thread. 11%  11%  [ 2 ]
No, this thread is full of stupid and incorrect information, it doesn't fit reality. 39%  39%  [ 7 ]
It's to complicated to understand the differences by reading and researching the scientific data about MRI studies. 22%  22%  [ 4 ]
I've no idea. 17%  17%  [ 3 ]
Yes, but this thread is false. I've a different view (please post your view!) :) 11%  11%  [ 2 ]
Total votes : 18

engineerbiology
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 67

11 Nov 2014, 2:12 pm

:!:READ EVERYTHING FROM UP TO DOWN BEFORE POSTING:!:

I want to give you my view of what autism is, and I hope you can learn something from it. I know it's A LOT of information.

I actually read this in a book from a man who is called Drew Mcpherson, who has written this book about autism/asperger, so no credits to me but to him :roll:

If you want to visualize the complete 4-dimensional vector space, goodluck :)

All information came from scientific papers.


POST 1

[...]
The current definitions in the official manual of mental disorders used by psychiatrists and psychologists segments psychological disorders into discrete categories. Given the broad range of human experience, I feel this is quite unfair and limits the ability of practitioners to describe a patient. Also, the definitions pertain to superficial emotions and behaviours only, which makes it
difficult for practitioners to accurately identify and treat the root cause of a patient?s suffering. Therefore, I have decided to redefine a person?s psychological state into a four dimensional continuum.
Let?s take a look at the definition of ?continuum?: 1. A continuous extent, succession, or whole, no part of which can be distinguished from neighbouring parts except by arbitrary division. This pretty accurately describes how I view the psychological spectrum and the triad of imbalances that I define. Current psychiatry involves arbitrary and biased interpretations. Hence a diagnosis is often subject to dispute from practitioner to practitioner, and can never be exact. One small mistake and a person could end up in the wrong category, subsequently being subjected to contraindicated treatments. My objective is to create a more dynamic rating system which is simpler, but also acknowledges the ever changing, intangible breadth of human existence.
[...]


The psychological (behavior) spectrum of autism and neurotypical look like this:

(Purely behavioral differences between humans, the structure of the brain fibers between regions)
(Btw, ADHD, and other behavioral disorders (as defined in the DSM) are part of the neurotypical-aspergian spectrum)

Neurotypical Psychopathy-------------------------------------------------------------------------Autistic Psychopathy
(--------------------------- Neurotypical ------------------------)(-------------------- Aspergian ------------------------)

All humans on this planet exist between this two extremes. On one end, you have neurotypicals who act like psychopaths (that means that these individuals are very social, and don't care about people who are less social, their pleasure center of the brain (dopamine) is active while watching someone elso suffering) and on the other end, you've autistics who act like psychopaths (that is that they don't seem to know how they react against people who want to be more social, they are brutally honest and don't care about social tactics, their pleasure center of the brain (dopamine) is active while watching someone elso suffering).


The emotional spectrum looks like this:

(Purely emotional and neurotransmitter differences between humans; dopamine/noradrenaline/serotonine/etc.)

Depression, anxiety, fear, psychose, etc.

No depression----------------------------------------------------------Depression
No psychose------------------------------------------------------------Psychose
No anxiety---------------------------------------------------------------anxiety
etc.


:!:READ EVERYTHING FROM UP TO DOWN BEFORE POSTING:!:



Last edited by engineerbiology on 11 Nov 2014, 4:30 pm, edited 26 times in total.

engineerbiology
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 67

11 Nov 2014, 2:14 pm

POST 2

The previous post defined a psychological spectrum. While extremely useful in order to classify and understand individuals of different natures, it is not technically complete. The 1 dimensional spectrum was the ?dumbed down? version which fits most people you will encounter.
The more complete psychological reality is that there are several dimensions which combine to contribute to a person?s complete psychological makeup. It just so happens that most of the time there is a correlation between the dimensions and so people generally fall onto a very predictable pattern in the multivariate psychological vector space.
For the sake of completeness, here are the set of axes that make up the entire psychological vector space from which the 1-
dimensional psychological spectrum is drawn:

Attention Distribution (AD): Monotropism vs. Polytropism. Low attention distribution is monotropism. High attention distribution is polytropism.
Monotropism is the ability to focus on a single task at the exclusion of all else. It is a general way of thinking that often occurs in autism and asperger?s and makes it difficult to read non-verbal cues while simultaneously in verbal conversation, but makes it easy to concentrate on a single task to a very deep level of understanding.
Polytropism is the ability to focus on several tasks, activities or stimuli simultaneously. Polytropic individuals find it easy to have several overlapping conversations with different individuals simultaneously and to read non-verbal cues while speaking and listening all at the same time. Polytropic individuals have a difficult time focusing their whole attention towards a single task for long periods of time.

Selfishness (S): Dishonesty used for the purpose of personal gain is a hallmark of selfishness. The opposite of selfishness, selflessness is when one sacrifices personal gain in order to help others.

Intelligence (IQ): Intelligence is defined as the ability to accumulate, store, retrieve and use knowledge in theory and practice.

Empathy / Ethics (EQ): Empathy is a level of understanding of individuals other than oneself. Generally it is easier to understand individuals who are similar to oneself than to understand individuals who are dramatically different in terms of their core values and principles. Ethics is a manner of behaviour in practice which demonstrates a high level of empathy towards others.

The simplified 1-dimensional psychological spectrum as defined in the first chapter roughly flows from low attention distribution and selfishness approximately linearly towards high attention distribution and selfishness. Intelligence and empathy are low towards the ends of the spectrum, and high near the middle of the spectrum. As was noted by Dennis Gabor in his book ?The Mature
Society?, there is a correlation between IQ and EQ, so I am simply extending this observation with my own about attention distribution and selfishness.
It is difficult to visualize, but imagine a segment of an upward spiralling helix inside a more complete four-dimensional vector space. Trying to visualize this should make it clear as to why I simplified it into a 1 dimensional line.


During early childhood brain development, the mind becomes wired to adapt to its surroundings.
There are parts of the mind that are already hardwired at birth, but much of it develops in the first few years of life. This happens primarily in the white matter of the brain where connections are made from one brain area to another. It is my contention that the genetic difference in between autistic individuals and neurotypical individuals is that in an autistic there are fewer connections already pre-made at birth. This essentially gives the autistic a bigger ?blank slate? to work with in
order to adapt to the environment and create connections in response to stimuli during the first few years of life.

Scientific evidence shows that during the first few years of life, the brain development occurring in an autistic is more rapid and encompasses a larger area than any neurotypical.
This has advantages since the autistic has the ability to adapt more completely to the environment, but it can also be problematic in hostile environments because the autistic is far more sensitive and far more volatile to change during this period of brain development. This period of childhood development, particularly for the autistic should be treated in exactly the same way as a foetus still in the womb. Any repeated harmful stimuli at this phase will result in major long-lasting adaptations to that stimuli, which could be problematic later in life.

Innovations in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology have allowed the structure of autistic brains to be compared to that of a neurotypical brain.
This is pretty exciting because it demonstrates some key differences. Before I get to talking about what those differences might be specifically, let me explain briefly the technology which allows these differences to be detected.
The technology used to perform these measurements is called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). This technique allows measurement of the anisotropy of tissues. What does this mean? In human tissues, there are often patterns whereby tissues have individual fibres which tend to travel in a parallel direction next to one another. This is common in muscle fibres and oftentimes in certain areas of the brain known as white matter.
A good analogy to understand this concept would be looking at the internal structure of a tree. There is a grain to the wood which travels in a certain direction. Alternatively, perhaps a more apt analogy for the brain would be to look at a bundle of cables which are all grouped together and
travelling from one location to another. The brain has many bundles of this sort in the white matter deep within the centre of the brain.
Let?s compare the brain to a computer network. The brain has grey matter on the surface which is analogous to a bunch of computers. There is white matter beneath the surface which contains numerous long strands of neural fibre, called axons. These axons connect one part of the grey matter to another part to relay information. So this would be like the network cables which connect individual computers together.

In a neurotypical brain there are generally many connections all bundled together between specific parts of the brain. Individual parts of the grey matter tend to activate when performing specific human functions, such as using language, or mathematics and logic etc. This allows different parts of the brain to specialize in certain types of computations. Because of this, medical science has been focussing on examining these individual parts separately to determine their specific function.
What the new studies have shown, however, is that in an autistic brain, the typical bundles of axons which connect specific parts of the brain are not laid out in the usual way that is expected to be seen in a neurotypical brain. So where a neurotypical brain has thick bundles of neural axon fibres connecting certain parts to one another, the autistic brain does not have these. The connections tend to be scattered to a lot of different areas simultaneously.

What some have hypothesized this to mean is that the autistic brain is less well connected compared to a neurotypical brain. This is true to an extent, but I believe an important upshot of this fact has been completely overlooked.
Consider a specific area of the brain, for instance Broca?s area which controls a person?s ability to speak. The connections in a neurotypical brain to this area tend to be mostly to and from the Wernicke area which allows these two specific areas to collaborate and perform their language functions while leaving the rest of the brain to perform other tasks. In an autistic brain however, the connections to Broca?s area are spread out to many different areas of the brain, rather than being primarily to the Wernicke area. This means that in order to engage in speaking, an autistic needs to engage his entire set of cognitive resources. This makes it difficult to focus on other things simultaneously, like the visual field, hearing or other senses. This makes perfect sense, considering that autistics find it very difficult to pick up non-verbal cues when they speak.
There is a benefit to having interconnections to many different areas of the brain instead of just between two specific ones. For instance, when an autistic focuses on performing a certain specific cognitive task, he will be engaging more grey matter resources simultaneously than a neurotypical can. As a result, he will appear to be more proficient at the task and be able to contemplate more aspects about that task simultaneously than a neurotypical could. The neurotypical may be using only the Broca and Wernicke areas to speak, but the autistic is using more cognitive resources to perform the same task. So his pronunciation, grammar and proper use of dictionary definitions tend to be far more precise than most neurotypicals of similar intelligence.



Last edited by engineerbiology on 11 Nov 2014, 4:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.

engineerbiology
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 67

11 Nov 2014, 2:30 pm

POST 3

Once we consider all four of these axes together, the picture becomes clearer, if more complex.
The possible states of existence for any individual consist of a four dimensional vector space with axes attention distribution, selfishness, intelligence and empathy. While technically all states of being are theoretically possible, in practice the distribution of individuals in our society is highly correlated. The concentration of individuals generally is higher along a line through the vector space which corresponds to low intelligence and low empathy at one end, high intelligence and high empathy at the other end. Along the other two axes, attention distribution and selfishness seem to be correlated to create the autism-neurotypical spectrum, with low selfishness and low attention distribution at one end and high selfishness, high attention distribution at the other end.
When visualized, you might imagine a segment of a spring, spiralling upwards. The distribution tends in a positively correlated upwards fashion and bows in the middle. If you find difficulty in visualizing this, that?s ok, so do I.


End!



Last edited by engineerbiology on 11 Nov 2014, 3:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

engineerbiology
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 67

11 Nov 2014, 3:02 pm

READ EVERYTHING FROM UP TO DOWN BEFORE POSTING



:!: READ EVERYTHING BEFORE POSTING :!:



READ EVERYTHING FROM UP TO DOWN BEFORE POSTING




You may now post! :) :D :lol: :wink:
(IF YOU UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING)



engineerbiology
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 67

11 Nov 2014, 3:57 pm

RESERVED



Last edited by engineerbiology on 12 Nov 2014, 3:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

engineerbiology
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 67

12 Nov 2014, 5:23 am

Bump, if you find this a stupid thread, please tell me why!



IdleHands
Pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 20 Jun 2013
Gender: Male
Posts: 177

12 Nov 2014, 7:21 am

Forum Postings

NT: Becomes established in the web community so the words they type in a forum have more credibility.
ASD: Post winded posts with low overall post count and then wonders why others did not view them as an "authority" on the subject matter.

I'm having fun with you :) I fall into the ASD category above, but you have to understand that many of us have been abused in life, and on top of that there have been people that have registered on this site, faked autism to gain traction, and then proceeded to verbally attack all of us.
That being said, I appreciate the time you took to write your post :)



engineerbiology
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 67

12 Nov 2014, 8:17 am

IdleHands wrote:
Forum Postings

NT: Becomes established in the web community so the words they type in a forum have more credibility.
ASD: Post winded posts with low overall post count and then wonders why others did not view them as an "authority" on the subject matter.

I'm having fun with you :) I fall into the ASD category above, but you have to understand that many of us have been abused in life, and on top of that there have been people that have registered on this site, faked autism to gain traction, and then proceeded to verbally attack all of us.
That being said, I appreciate the time you took to write your post :)


Yes, it is sad that people are very influenced by your credibility. Some people have no credibility, and they aren't believed by most people that exist, even if they have the best ideas.

This is actually why I write the other thread about the development of the autistic brain (with lots of scientific papers in it), so people can actually see how I have searched (and researched) the available scientific data about autism.
And also some other useless posts :wink:

Btw, do you understand the different 'traits'? Can you add some objective 'traits', because I think it's not complete.
Your trait would fall under: charm I think.


_________________
Check my thread about the difference between the autistic brain and the neurotypical brain:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt270321.html


YippySkippy
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Feb 2011
Age: 43
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,986

12 Nov 2014, 8:47 am

Quote:
if you find this a stupid thread, please tell me why!


Your post is too long, and your tone is bossy. Also, I already know a lot about ASD, and don't feel I require a lecture on the topic. For these reasons, I didn't read much of what you wrote, nor did I take your poll.



Adamantium
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Feb 2013
Age: 1024
Gender: Female
Posts: 5,863
Location: Erehwon

12 Nov 2014, 8:47 am

There are problems of logic and dodgy premises here, but the thing that stands out most is the absurd definitions of NTs.

NTs are "slity-eyed," selfish, use poor grammar and can't spell?

Seriously?

That's a bunch of crap.



engineerbiology
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 67

12 Nov 2014, 8:53 am

Adamantium wrote:
There are problems of logic and dodgy premises here, but the thing that stands out most is the absurd definitions of NTs.

NTs are "slity-eyed," selfish, use poor grammar and can't spell?

Seriously?

That's a bunch of crap.


You definitely didn't thought about the subject, but I guess you already have too low guilibility, and don't pass in this aspergian trait, hence you're skeptical of this differences I posted - without doing your own research and observing human beings and make a conclusion yourself. I think you are more interested in saying words like "bunch" "crap", then actually give your honest opinion on what is incorrect, and why the information is incorrect - indirect communication.

Gullibility traits:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gullibility

Btw, this slitty closed trait opposed to wide open trait is also visible at this pictures of people with autism:
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/is-it-a ... -disorder/


_________________
Check my thread about the difference between the autistic brain and the neurotypical brain:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt270321.html


Last edited by engineerbiology on 12 Nov 2014, 9:27 am, edited 3 times in total.

kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

12 Nov 2014, 8:56 am

I find that some pepole stereotype NT's like they used to stereotype "oriental" people in the old days.



YippySkippy
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Feb 2011
Age: 43
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,986

12 Nov 2014, 9:00 am

Quote:
You definitely didn't thought about the subject, but I guess you already have too low guilibility, and don't pass in this aspergian trait, hence you're skeptical of this differences I posted - without doing your own research and observing human beings and make a conclusion yourself. I think you are more interested in saying words like "bunch" "crap", then actually give your honest opinion on what is incorrect, and why, indirect communication.


Oh, now I understand. The OP doesn't really want to communicate, he just wants to attack anyone who doesn't agree with his ramblings. What a waste of time.



engineerbiology
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 67

12 Nov 2014, 9:01 am

YippySkippy wrote:
Quote:
You definitely didn't thought about the subject, but I guess you already have too low guilibility, and don't pass in this aspergian trait, hence you're skeptical of this differences I posted - without doing your own research and observing human beings and make a conclusion yourself. I think you are more interested in saying words like "bunch" "crap", then actually give your honest opinion on what is incorrect, and why, indirect communication.


Oh, now I understand. The OP doesn't really want to communicate, he just wants to attack anyone who doesn't agree with his ramblings. What a waste of time.


No, I'm asking for constructive criticism, not words like "crap" etc.

Thanks.



engineerbiology
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 67

12 Nov 2014, 9:09 am

YippySkippy wrote:
Quote:
if you find this a stupid thread, please tell me why!


Your post is too long, and your tone is bossy. Also, I already know a lot about ASD, and don't feel I require a lecture on the topic. For these reasons, I didn't read much of what you wrote, nor did I take your poll.


"I see why kids with Asperger?s end up seeming like the ?little professor."
http://wellinthishouse.com/aspergers-an ... ntic/5514/

The really sad thing is you accuse me of holding a lecture/being very "bossy", but in reality, this is an asperger trait, and you're like the neurotypicals who accuse me of being different. I never asked your opinion anyway about my differences.

So, yes, I'm very bossy, which is a trait of asperger I have...



Norny
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Dec 2013
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,488

12 Nov 2014, 9:34 am

The nature of these posts make it incredibly hard to reply, because I have no idea what I should be replying to, and I truly feel that a solid solution will not come of it as my post would have to be equally as massive in order to be worthy of discussion. I suggest you split up your ideas into smaller threads (not all at once, say once every few weeks) so that people will bother replying appropriately. I can lay out an example using the autism spectrum for you:

Rather than I make a post about stimming, sensory issues, routines/rituals and meltdowns all in one, it would be more suitable to create a thread that focuses purely on stimming. This way I could provide a clear contention and a narrow topic with which others can work with, without being overwhelmed by information.

engineerbiology wrote:
Adamantium wrote:
There are problems of logic and dodgy premises here, but the thing that stands out most is the absurd definitions of NTs.

NTs are "slity-eyed," selfish, use poor grammar and can't spell?

Seriously?

That's a bunch of crap.


You definitely didn't thought about the subject, but I guess you already have too low guilibility, and don't pass in this aspergian trait, hence you're skeptical of this differences I posted - without doing your own research and observing human beings and make a conclusion yourself. I think you are more interested in saying words like "bunch" "crap", then actually give your honest opinion on what is incorrect, and why the information is incorrect - indirect communication.


On the contrary, it isn't hard to see that it is not 'being NT' or 'being autistic' dictating what a person's bone structure will be. I have previously seen the list you have posted here, and it's nothing different to the anti-vaccine claims - that is, it really is a bunch of crap. The onus isn't on others to disprove such shaky claims, it is on the individual/group presenting them to provide some validity in the first place.

It would be like if I stated that the sky was red, expecting others to scientifically dispute my fantastic finding.


_________________
Unapologetically, Norny. :rambo:
-chronically drunk