Brain Hyperconnectivity in Children with Autism and Its Links to Social Deficits (2013)

OP's article is about children, yours is about adults.

OP's article's conclusion states "Furthermore, our study highlights the importance of studying neurodevelopmental disorders closer to their onset, rather than in adulthood when a lifetime of compensatory mechanisms may have already taken place"

As I understand, autistic people often get negative reinforcement from authoritarian mindsets of society (follow the general norm and the power structures instead of thinking for yourself) and that can be kinda traumatizing for autistic people

So what we need is to value that every person's perspective is equally valid, and their ideas are plausible, and no one is inherently superior, whether NT or ASD etc...

> Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value > > -Baha'i Teaching

Wouldn't be the first time that a syndrome ends up having basically two opposite etiologies.

Abnormal synaptic density-- high or low) producing autism-like social deficits wouldn't be too much of a surprise.

Alternatively, starting with high connectivity resulting in a greater rate of synaptic pruning and overcorrection wouldn't be a surprise, either.

All are interesting things to think about and watch evolve.

Different underlying causes for the same condition is possible.

Given how little we know about the internals of brain function, it’s not surprising to see conflicting indicators of the same condition.

I’m just a layman, tho, so what do I know.

I’d suggest tracing a line through the points of published research on autism, hyperthermia and its effects on autism spectrum related behaviors, the effect of Interleukin-17 thereon, the relationship from between IL-17 and Th17 helper cells, and the 5-HT2A receptor’s effects on Th17 cell regulation. And other stuff. Like thermoregulation. There’s more interesting stuff on the way and at every point.

To manage expectations: It’s… an imaginary line?

—- edit: on the run, hope to be able to follow up with papers

Amusing comments provided you are not Vinod. Three sites and I would hope that connectomes were computed interleaved between cases and controls and analyzed with blinding. Is that standard? Do you think behavioral difference in the scanner could generate false positive connectome differences?

Is it too bold to say that any 10+ year old study claiming to have found across-subject brain x behavior relationship is not worth looking at closely?

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This sounds like memespeak cope. There is a deficit from the perspective of other people participating in the society. Yes, nothing died inside. No, it isn’t necessary for anything to be dead for a deficit to exist.

This is like assuming that cancer is good? More cells, better body?

This is just a hypothetical counter-argument. More connectivity could be better, "more intelligent", and autism seems to be "cool" among nerds for this reason. But maybe it's just a fallacy, just a way to pretend to be something better.

Again, all hypothetical.

Yesterday I listened to a podcast episode about bird brains [0]. That some birds have a way more efficient brain than ours, even if they are not as intelligent as we are. They are smarter than other primates, but their brain just weighs around 10g, while the one of chimps, which are about as intelligent as some birds, weighs 400g and consumes a lot more energy. They have an underdeveloped cortex, so apparently it isn't as important as one might think. That it could be that the cortex is more dedicated to sensing, than to thinking. Birds, for example, don't have such complex sensory inputs like our hands or our entire skin surface, that "memory mapping" all those inputs requires such a big cortex.

[0] https://www-spektrum-de.translate.goog/podcast/spektrum-podc...

What do you mean by "next"? Evolution doesn't have a plan. It'd be more adapted for some things and less for others.

The fitness function that would govern that evolution would be new though. We’d be intentionally optimizing for brains that work that way with some new social or technical construct. Like if we said “autism is the new exposed ankles” and suddenly had many more babies who also demonstrated that trait. Or if we had access to technology that would select for that outcome, gattaca style.

> Doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me.

It does to me, sounds like Lamarckian confusion, not evolution.

Well, there are plusses and minuses. At a certain level of size, connectedness, and semi-specialization, you get (what we label) consciousness.

It's not just size, but there is some bare minimum of nodes. It's not just pure contentedness. That's just noise. It's not just specialization. It helps with speed, but you lose plasticity and adaptability.

Also, there's a physical limit with respect to growth speed 'cuz cancer and sustainable metabolic rates wrt food intake, digestive efficiency, and thermoregulation. It seems the shrews and moles have "hacked" that in very different ways.

There's also a physical limit with brain size for live births--which we're already really, really pushing.

Honestly, I would've thought the most intelligent species would use eggs to minimize the trauma/risk of live-births to both child and mother, but I guess mother's milk is so beneficial it makes up for all of that.

As someone else pointed out: more isn't better. There's an optimum, and it depends on the task. There are some "in vivo" studies about connections in the young cat's visual cortex. It starts out very connected, and most of the connectivity is lost, while structures form.

Is there a survival and reproduction advantage from that?

Except than in brain development the general trend is to lose a large fraction of many neuron types, synapses, and excess axonal connections.