I'm interested to get my fellow #ActuallyAutistic folks' takes on this.

Neuroscience News: Is Inflammation in Childhood A Mechanistic Link to Neurodevelopmental Disorders?
https://neurosciencenews.com/neurodevelopment-inflammation-24941/

@actuallyautistic
@neurodivergence

@hosford42 @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence I am dubious of the article. First it is presented in the hook & single answer style —so it sort of smells like snake oil. Seems odd with a single author too. The repeated lumping together of Autism and Schizophrenia is old 60's psych. The title captures framing this as there is one source and we will sell you one pill that fixes you—reality & complexity be damned. This puts Docs/insurers with "here's a solution, too bad it didn't help you outlier."

@null_hypothesis @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence I was surprised to learn that there are a lot of genes that increase the probability of both autism and schizophrenia. It always seemed like they were 180° opposites to me, despite the 60's psych tropes you mentioned.

@hosford42 @null_hypothesis @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence

They're reporting on correlations, not causes.

@26pglt @null_hypothesis @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the genes they identify that are correlated with multiple kinds of neurodivergence are in fact genes which modulate neurotypicality in some way. They always look at neurotypicality as the default setting, as if that is how the system is supposed to work and neurodivergences are failure modes. But I think there are multiple ways the system is supposed to work (evolutionarily speaking). If they put them on equal footing in their research, they'll learn a lot more about all of them, because their assumptions won't mask patterns that don't match them anymore.

@hosford42 @26pglt @null_hypothesis @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence There's a widespread bias towards teleological reasoning.

@foolishowl @hosford42 @26pglt @null_hypothesis @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence

True (bias toward teleological reasoning) and, in my opinion, harmless and a natural bias for humans of all kinds. Harmless provided that projected intention does not overwhelm observed outcome, and that we recognize observed outcome is always contextual and partial. In other words, the purpose of a system is what it does (POSIWID), but we never get to observe the entirety of what it does.

In the context of this discussion, the various components of our neurological growth and processes have a purpose (probably), but the nature and extent of that purpose is something that we should observe rather than infer, and we should always recognize that we will never have the full picture. If we can maintain that perspective in research, than we may be able to learn some things and alleviate some suffering without creating more harm than benefit.

@foolishowl @hosford42 @26pglt @null_hypothesis @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence

On the harmful side of the coin, however, research into gene expression that looks for how the outcome "should" be or measures outcome only in limited contexts (white capitalism, for example) is an ableist path to destructive social control and eugenics that must always be avoided. This is why we must be far more careful than we are about non-consensually collecting genetic material, letting lab workers run loose with it, and then casually talking about it through the lens of careless and sensationalist journalists.

@GTMLosAngeles @foolishowl @hosford42 @26pglt @null_hypothesis @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence IIRC a study some time ago found a link between ADHD, autism, depression, high IQ, and a bunch of roughly 70 genes which all regulate brain development. For each one of those genes there is one allele or sometimes two which slightly increases the chances of having a high IQ, but also of being autistic, having ADHD, and having depression.

@LordCaramac @foolishowl @hosford42 @26pglt
T@null_hypothesis@mas.to @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence
This here was for me an informative survey, along similar lines: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4927579/

@LordCaramac @foolishowl @hosford42
@26pglt @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence

Also, very important: all measures of intelligence are inherently racist.

@GTMLosAngeles @LordCaramac @foolishowl @26pglt @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence I agree that IQ measures are problematic, at least as currently implemented. But saying they are *all* inherently racist seems a but of a stretch. Can you explain your reasoning? Not to argue. I just want to understand where you're coming from on this.

My own view is that, putting aside the glaring and important methodological problems in how we measure it, what remains a problem is that IQ is misinterpreted and misused as a basis for racism and ableism. But neither of these profound and pervasive problems, IMO, makes the measurement of IQ itself inherently racist or ableist. We measure vision and hearing routinely for health, but racism and ableism doesn't inherently get brought into those discussions. For some reason people can't seem to keep them separate when it comes to intelligence, though, and that is the real problem, IMO.

@hosford42 @GTMLosAngeles @foolishowl @26pglt @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence IQ tests measure how good you are at solving standardised tests. Measuring actual intelligence is hard, especially since intelligence is not just one thing. My own results on IQ tests, back in the days when I did a bunch of those just for fun, half my life ago in my late teens and twenties, are scattered between 127 and 135. What does that say about my intelligence? And what can I say to those who ask me why I haven't got a career and a huge incone even though I'm so bloody intelligent and know so bloody much about bloody anything?
I was a "gifted" child once, but always lost somewhere in my own head, not getting along with others, always the weird one with strange tastes and strange interests. I always had excellent grades in natural sciences, Maths, German, and English, pretty decent ones in Latin, Computer Science, History, rather average ones in Geography and Social Science, but I absolutely sucked at sports of any kind. I had few friends, all of them weird like me, many later diagnosed with ADHD or autism.

I don't know how to get a decent job in the first place, most neurotypicals don't know how to work with somebody like me, no matter how clever I am. I also constantly forget things or leave things halfway done, because once I get distracted, I completely forget about not having finished them. When I really enjoy what I'm doing, I forget that the world outside of my current obsession even exists until I find that my mouth is dry, my stomach is empty, or my bladder is full. I often don't even notice when somebody tries to talk to me while I'm busy enjoying whatever I do at that time unless the shout at me or touch me. My cat is quite good at getting my attention, but humans for some reason often seem to feel insulted by me if I don't react to them immediately because my brain just filters them out as part of the background noise in which I have to exist somehow. They also tend to be annoyed when I don't look at them while they're talking to me, if I doodle in my sketchbook or play with my tools and utensils, they can't understand it's easier for me to focus on their words when I don't stare at their faces, and that I need to keep my hands busy doing something to keep my brain from running off to some more interesting place.

Am I intelligent? Well, probably. But my intelligence is more of a toy than a tool to me, since I cannot use it in a manner that is of any use in a common workplace environment with common workflows filled with, designed by and for, neurotypical people. If they insist on me looking at their faces while they're explaining something, I might have a hard time understanding it if I don't already know what they're talking about, because I spend too much of my brainpower on deciphering their emotions. The reason I got good grades in school was that I always knew everything years in advance since I spent many of my childhood days sitting on the sofa reading books despite my mother alway trying to get me to go outside. I didn't learn much there, I don't know if I could have. Learning from textbooks is so much easier.

I think that human intelligence is overrated, anyway. We've got mutated oversized overclocked ape brains, but we're still apes, with all the instincts and emotions of apes, and those are what really drives us most of the time. Most humans have this herd instinct that makes them imitate one another and conform to any kind of group consensus no matter how wrong or meaningless, and I'm quite glad I haven't got one of those. I'm still an ape though, I still feel many ape feelings and drives, just not that one which causes you to become synchronised with your group without even thinking about it.

Sorry for the wall of text, just ignore it if it gets too much. I'm on an instance allowing 5000 characters, and my mind was running wild again while I was typing.

@LordCaramac @hosford42 @foolishowl @26pglt @actuallyautistic @neurodivergence

If tests designed to compare performance at recognizing patterns, calculating arithmetic, defining vocabulary, memorizing sets, or rotating objects in space to specific reference groups were called relative pattern recognition performance, relative arithmetic calculation performance, etc., instead of "intelligence tests" then maybe there would be less confusion about using the outcomes of those tests.