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I am a 24-year-old autistic woman with degrees in biochemistry and English literature.
Autist's Corner
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- April 21, 2011
- 10:56 PM
- 967 views
Poll Data on Vaccines Looks Contradictory, But Isn't
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Attempts to reconcile a Harris poll finding that only half of Americans don't think vaccines cause autism with CDC survey data finding that the large majority of Americans think vaccines are safe.... Read more »
Freed, G., Clark, S., Butchart, A., Singer, D., & Davis, M. (2011) Sources and Perceived Credibility of Vaccine-Safety Information for Parents. PEDIATRICS. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2010-1722P
Kennedy, A., Basket, M., & Sheedy, K. (2011) Vaccine Attitudes, Concerns, and Information Sources Reported by Parents of Young Children: Results From the 2009 HealthStyles Survey. PEDIATRICS. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2010-1722N
- November 8, 2010
- 02:52 PM
- 951 views
Autism-Related Gene Spotlight: SLC4A10
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
I'm doing a series describing genes that have been found to be associated (even weakly, as this one is) with autism. This one is a membrane-spanning transport protein that exchanges sodium and bicarbonate ions for chloride ion; it is primarily expressed in the central nervous system. Mutations in this gene lead to changes in neuronal excitability, which can manifest as seizures.... Read more »
Damkier, H., Aalkjaer, C., & Praetorius, J. (2010) Na -dependent HCOFormula Import by the slc4a10 Gene Product Involves Cl- Export. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 285(35), 26998-27007. DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M110.108712
Gurnett CA, Veile R, Zempel J, Blackburn L, Lovett M, & Bowcock A. (2008) Disruption of sodium bicarbonate transporter SLC4A10 in a patient with complex partial epilepsy and mental retardation. Archives of neurology, 65(4), 550-553. PMID: 18413482
Jacobs, S., Ruusuvuori, E., Sipila, S., Haapanen, A., Damkier, H., Kurth, I., Hentschke, M., Schweizer, M., Rudhard, Y., Laatikainen, L.... (2008) Mice with targeted Slc4a10 gene disruption have small brain ventricles and show reduced neuronal excitability. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(1), 311-316. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0705487105
- May 5, 2011
- 09:51 PM
- 916 views
Memento Mori: Thoughts of Death Can Subtly Bias People's Ideas about Human Origins
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Discussion of some psychological research into the emotional underpinnings of creationism... Read more »
Tracy, J., Hart, J., & Martens, J. (2011) Death and Science: The Existential Underpinnings of Belief in Intelligent Design and Discomfort with Evolution. PLoS ONE, 6(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017349
- December 10, 2010
- 05:18 PM
- 896 views
Fetal Testosterone and Autistic Traits - Part II: Eye Contact
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Part of an ongoing series examining the empirical support for Simon Baron-Cohen's "extreme male brain" theory of autism... Read more »
Lutchmaya, S., Baron-Cohen, S., & Raggatt, P. (2002) Foetal testosterone and eye contact in 12-month-old human infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 25(3), 327-335. DOI: 10.1016/S0163-6383(02)00094-2
- May 27, 2011
- 08:42 PM
- 838 views
1 in 38?
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Discussion of a population-based South Korean study of the prevalence of autism... Read more »
Kim, Y., Leventhal, B., Koh, Y., Fombonne, E., Laska, E., Lim, E., Cheon, K., Kim, S., Kim, Y., Lee, H.... (2011) Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders in a Total Population Sample. American Journal of Psychiatry. DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2011.10101532
- December 21, 2010
- 02:49 PM
- 819 views
Fetal Testosterone and Autistic Traits - Part IV: Verbal Abilities
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Part of an ongoing series examining the evidence for Simon Baron-Cohen's "extreme male brain" theory of autism... Read more »
Lutchmaya, S., Baron-Cohen, S., & Raggatt, P. (2001) Foetal testosterone and vocabulary size in 18- and 24-month-old infants. Infant Behavior and Development, 24(4), 418-424. DOI: 10.1016/S0163-6383(02)00087-5
- December 30, 2010
- 03:50 PM
- 813 views
Fetal Testosterone and Autistic Traits - Part V(a): More About Visuospatial Abilities
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Part of an ongoing series evaluating the evidence for Simon Baron-Cohen's "extreme male brain" theory of autism... Read more »
Auyeung, B., Baron-Cohen, S., Ashwin, E., Knickmeyer, R., Taylor, K., & Hackett, G. (2009) Fetal testosterone and autistic traits. British Journal of Psychology, 100(1), 1-22. DOI: 10.1348/000712608X311731
Dawson, M., Soulieres, I., Ann Gernsbacher, M., & Mottron, L. (2007) The Level and Nature of Autistic Intelligence. Psychological Science, 18(8), 657-662. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01954.x
Shah, A., & Frith, U. (1993) Why Do Autistic Individuals Show Superior Performance on the Block Design Task?. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 34(8), 1351-1364. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1993.tb02095.x
- September 15, 2010
- 03:31 PM
- 806 views
Through a (Brain) Scanner, Darkly
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Explains Ecker et al. (2010)'s statistical analysis of the geometry of MRI-derived computer models of 20 autistic men's brains, compared with normal and abnormal (ADHD) controls... Read more »
Ecker C, Marquand A, Mourão-Miranda J, Johnston P, Daly EM, Brammer MJ, Maltezos S, Murphy CM, Robertson D, Williams SC.... (2010) Describing the brain in autism in five dimensions--magnetic resonance imaging-assisted diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder using a multiparameter classification approach. The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 30(32), 10612-23. PMID: 20702694
- January 31, 2011
- 02:31 PM
- 774 views
Too Many, Too Soon?
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Discusses Smith and Woods's (2010) re-analysis of Thompson et al.'s (2007) data on vaccine exposure in infancy and neuropsychological outcome in later childhood, with reference to the current popular idea that early-childhood vaccination schedules call for "too many, too soon."... Read more »
Smith, M., & Woods, C. (2010) On-time Vaccine Receipt in the First Year Does Not Adversely Affect Neuropsychological Outcomes. PEDIATRICS, 125(6), 1134-1141. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2009-2489
Thompson WW, Price C, Goodson B, Shay DK, Benson P, Hinrichsen VL, Lewis E, Eriksen E, Ray P, Marcy SM.... (2007) Early thimerosal exposure and neuropsychological outcomes at 7 to 10 years. The New England journal of medicine, 357(13), 1281-92. PMID: 17898097
- February 25, 2011
- 01:35 AM
- 757 views
Testosterone and Estrogen Have Opposite Effects on a Gene Thought to be Underexpressed in Autism
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Describes the regulation by steroid hormones of a hormone-dependent transcription factor, ROR-alpha, that enhances transcription of several key genes involved in lipid metabolism, brain development and regulating cell division. This gene is thought to be underexpressed in autistic people, based on two studies that I also discuss in the post.... Read more »
Hu, V., Frank, B., Heine, S., Lee, N., & Quackenbush, J. (2006) Gene expression profiling of lymphoblastoid cell lines from monozygotic twins discordant in severity of autism reveals differential regulation of neurologically relevant genes. BMC Genomics, 7(1), 118. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2164-7-118
Hu, V., Sarachana, T., Kim, K., Nguyen, A., Kulkarni, S., Steinberg, M., Luu, T., Lai, Y., & Lee, N. (2009) Gene expression profiling differentiates autism case-controls and phenotypic variants of autism spectrum disorders: evidence for circadian rhythm dysfunction in severe autism. Autism Research, 2(2), 78-97. DOI: 10.1002/aur.73
Hu, V., & Steinberg, M. (2009) Novel clustering of items from the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised to define phenotypes within autism spectrum disorders. Autism Research, 2(2), 67-77. DOI: 10.1002/aur.72
Sarachana, T., Xu, M., Wu, R., & Hu, V. (2011) Sex Hormones in Autism: Androgens and Estrogens Differentially and Reciprocally Regulate RORA, a Novel Candidate Gene for Autism. PLoS ONE, 6(2). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017116
- November 18, 2010
- 11:40 PM
- 649 views
Autism-Related Gene Spotlight: CNTNAP2
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Describes a gene encoding a protein in the neurexin family, Caspr2, that's involved in myelination and distribution of ion channels along axons. Disruptions of this gene have been associated with autism, epilepsy, Tourette syndrome, intellectual disability, schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental disorders.... Read more »
Arking, D., Cutler, D., Brune, C., Teslovich, T., West, K., Ikeda, M., Rea, A., Guy, M., Lin, S., & Cook Jr., E. (2008) A Common Genetic Variant in the Neurexin Superfamily Member CNTNAP2 Increases Familial Risk of Autism. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 82(1), 160-164. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.09.015
Bakkaloglu, B., O'Roak, B., Louvi, A., Gupta, A., Abelson, J., Morgan, T., Chawarska, K., Klin, A., Ercan-Sencicek, A., & Stillman, A. (2008) Molecular Cytogenetic Analysis and Resequencing of Contactin Associated Protein-Like 2 in Autism Spectrum Disorders. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 82(1), 165-173. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.09.017
Poliak S, Gollan L, Martinez R, Custer A, Einheber S, Salzer JL, Trimmer JS, Shrager P, & Peles E. (1999) Caspr2, a new member of the neurexin superfamily, is localized at the juxtaparanodes of myelinated axons and associates with K channels. Neuron, 24(4), 1037-47. PMID: 10624965
Poliak, S., & Peles, E. (2003) The local differentiation of myelinated axons at nodes of Ranvier. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 4(12), 968-980. DOI: 10.1038/nrn1253
- April 29, 2010
- 09:12 PM
- 635 views
Bizarre Things Purported to Cause Autism: Cells from Aborted Fetuses
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Debunks one of the weirder incarnations of the vaccines-cause-autism hypothesis I've ever heard: according to Dr. Theresa Deisher of the pro-life advocacy group Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, human fetal cells contaminating vaccines are triggering massive autoimmune reactions in children all over the U.S., causing an epidemic of autism. Not only is this extremely unlikely, from a purely physical standpoint, but the evidence Dr. Deisher leans on to support her thesis is 1) circumstantial and 2) based on an egregious misreading of an EPA-funded study of rising autism prevalence rates over the past 50 years.... Read more »
McDonald, M., & Paul, J. (2010) Timing of Increased Autistic Disorder Cumulative Incidence. Environmental Science , 44(6), 2112-2118. DOI: 10.1021/es902057k
- August 22, 2010
- 07:40 PM
- 612 views
PLoS ONE: Children from Wealthier Families More Likely to Meet Criteria for an ASD
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Describes research analyzing 2002-2004 autism prevalence data cross-referenced with socioeconomic data from the 2000 census on the geographic areas under surveillance in the autism-prevalence studies. My post also addresses to what extent these results show a link between autism and SES independent of wealthier families' greater access to health-care services.... Read more »
Durkin, M., Maenner, M., Meaney, F., Levy, S., DiGuiseppi, C., Nicholas, J., Kirby, R., Pinto-Martin, J., & Schieve, L. (2010) Socioeconomic Inequality in the Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from a U.S. Cross-Sectional Study. PLoS ONE, 5(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011551
- December 22, 2010
- 04:31 PM
- 603 views
Fetal Testosterone and Autistic Traits - Part V: Visuospatial Abilities
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Part of an ongoing series examining the empirical support for Simon Baron-Cohen's "extreme male brain" theory of autism... Read more »
Falter CM, Plaisted KC, & Davis G. (2008) Visuo-spatial processing in autism--testing the predictions of extreme male brain theory. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 38(3), 507-515. PMID: 17674175
Finegan, J., Niccols, G., & Sitarenios, G. (1992) Relations between prenatal testosterone levels and cognitive abilities at 4 years. Developmental Psychology, 28(6), 1075-1089. DOI: 10.1037/0012-1649.28.6.1075
- May 29, 2011
- 03:33 PM
- 603 views
Gene Expression in Autistic Brain Tissue
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Discussion of a recent study finding differences in amount of mRNA corresponding to two gene networks in autistic vs. control brain tissue samples. My focus is primarily on what they did and how they did it --- I mention, but do not spend a whole lot of time on, what they found.... Read more »
Irina Voineagu, Xinchen Wang, Patrick Johnston, Jennifer K. Lowe, Yuan Tian, Steve Horvath, Jonathan Mill, Rita M. Cantor, Benjamin J. Blencowe, & Daniel H. Geschwind. (2011) Transcriptomic analysis of autistic brain reveals convergent molecular pathology. Nature. info:/10.1038/nature10110
- December 1, 2009
- 07:41 PM
- 573 views
Verbal Ability and Face Processing in Autism
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Highlights counterintuitive results from De Wit et al. (2008)'s study of gaze patterns in autistic children: apparently, the greater the children's social and communication skills were, the less time they spent looking at the eyes of people shown interacting in video clips. This is odd because avoidance of eye contact is seen as a characteristic trait for autism, and to have kids who score as "less autistic" display this trait more strongly than kids who score as "more autistic" on measures of social and communicative impairment argues that there isn't quite the straight line between autistic impairment and behavioral signifiers --- like eye contact --- that there has been alleged to be.... Read more »
DEWIT, T., FALCKYTTER, T., & VONHOFSTEN, C. (2008) Young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder look differently at positive versus negative emotional faces. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2(4), 651-659. DOI: 10.1016/j.rasd.2008.01.004
- February 3, 2009
- 11:55 PM
- 573 views
Two Surprising Articles About Insect Behavior and Cognition
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
The first post in a two-part series; this one discusses how desert locusts adapt to shifting population densities by changing their metabolism and behavior through a process mediated by serotonin.... Read more »
Anstey, M., Rogers, S., Ott, S., Burrows, M., & Simpson, S. (2009) Serotonin Mediates Behavioral Gregarization Underlying Swarm Formation in Desert Locusts. Science, 323(5914), 627-630. DOI: 10.1126/science.1165939
- November 6, 2010
- 05:32 PM
- 573 views
Autism and Genetics: It's Complicated
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Evidence from a 2007 genomic study of 264 families suggests that autistic people have a higher rate of spontaneous mutation than non-autistic people, and that autistic people without any autistic family members have the highest mutation rate of all... Read more »
Sebat, J., Lakshmi, B., Malhotra, D., Troge, J., Lese-Martin, C., Walsh, T., Yamrom, B., Yoon, S., Krasnitz, A., Kendall, J.... (2007) Strong Association of De Novo Copy Number Mutations with Autism. Science, 316(5823), 445-449. DOI: 10.1126/science.1138659
- October 13, 2010
- 09:35 PM
- 570 views
Who's That in the Mirror? Autism and the Developing Sense of Self
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: A small, exploratory British study of preschoolers with either autism or Down syndrome and typically developing toddlers looked at how each group of children acted toward their reflections in a mirror. They looked for trends, both group trends (i.e., how do autistic children differ from their non-autistic developmental peers, represented in different ways by the Down syndrome group and the younger typically developing group, whose chronological age matched the developmental ages found for both developmentally-disabled groups), and within-group trends relating mirror behavior to performance on a test of mirror self-recognition (i.e., do they know that the person in the mirror is their own reflection). They found that although the autistic children did not differ from the younger, typically developing children in the amount of time spent looking at their own faces, but that they did spend a lot more time looking at objects in the mirror, and that their behavior toward their reflections differed from that of either control group. The autistic children did not generally try to relate socially to the person in the mirror; what they did instead varied according to whether they recognized their own mirror images or not._____________________________________ (The Evil Queen from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" with her Magic Mirror)BPS Research Digest spotlighted this study published in last month's issue of Autism, which claims to describe another type of subtle behavioral difference between autistic, otherwise developmentally disabled, and typically developing children.Autistic children, they hypothesized, would act differently toward their own images in mirrors than either typically developing toddlers or developmentally delayed --- but not autistic --- children (in this case having Down syndrome) of similar ages to the autistic children. They would look in the mirror, and would experiment with it (i.e., doing things to see those things reflected back to them, using the mirror to look at things behind them, etc.), but would not try to engage the person in the mirror socially; would not talk to it, smile at it, or try to show it things.(Reading this, I was kind of surprised to see that it was normal to treat the mirror image as if it were a real person! It doesn't act like one, and you'd think that if you recognized it as yourself, you'd know you couldn't actually talk to it or interact with it, because it would just do the same things you did. Of course, the children in this study were very young --- the typically-developing ones were about eighteen months old, and the Down syndrome and autistic kids three or four years old.)Methodologically, the study's not that interesting: the researchers went into the homes of each of their subjects (38 in total: 12 with autism, 13 with Down syndrome, and 13 typically developing toddlers), produced a mirror, filmed the children interacting with it freely for two minutes, and then tested to see if the children recognized themselves in the mirror by having their parents put a sticker on their faces to see if they removed the sticker after seeing it reflected in the mirror. If they removed it, they were said to have passed the "Mirror Self-Recognition" (MSR) test*.Later, the researchers watched the videos they'd made of the children interacting with the mirror, looking for group differences (between autistic, Down syndrome, and typically developing children, but also between passers and failers of the MSR) in such things as level of interest in one's own face (i.e., how long does the child look at hir own face, rather than at other things reflected in the mirror), kind of actions directed at one's reflection (i.e., does the child greet hir reflection, talk to it, perform in front of it, or show things to it), and affective response to one's reflection (does the child appear pleased to see hirself, do they appear self-conscious, coy or embarrassed, do they smile at themselves).Compared with the other groups, the autistic children spent a lot more time looking at objects in the mirror. However, contrary to what you might expect given the common wisdom about autistic people avoiding eye contact/looking at faces, though, they did not differ much from the typically-developing ones in how long they spent looking at their own faces. (The children with Down syndrome spent the most time looking at their own faces).Figure 1, in Reddy et al. (2010). The panel on the left shows the amount of time (expressed as a percentage) that the different groups of children (autism, Down syndrome and typically developing toddlers, each subdivided into passers and failers of the mirror self-recognition test) spent looking at their own faces. The panel on the right shows the amount of time they spent looking at other objects in the mirror. In both graphs, the placement of the bars (i.e., are they higher or lower) is what tells you how much time a given group spent doing a given thing. The size of the bars (i.e., are they long or short) tells you how much variation there is within that group. The autistic children also differed from the other two groups in what kinds of things they did in front of the mirror; autistic children, whether they recognized themselves in the mirror or not, spent a lot less time trying to relate to their reflections socially. What they did instead varied with whether or not they understood that they were looking at themselves: autistic children who passed the MSR test spent most of their time experimenting with the mirror, tilting it to see things around the room, doing things with toys or with their faces while watching to see those actions reflected back to them, while autistic children who failed to recognize their own reflections spent more time simply watching the person in the mirror. Children with Down syndrome also spent more time watching their reflections if they failed the MSR test; the typically developing children spent about the same amount of time watching themselves whether or not they seemed to know they were watching themselves. They also spent more time watching themselves, relative to other actions, than either of the atypical groups. The study authors hypothesize that "[a] watchful focus on the self could be due to imminent self-recognition (suggested by the finding of a short-term alignment between watching and self-recognition in typical development, Nielsen et al., 2003)."The typically developing children also did not show any relationship between MSR and social-relating behavior toward the mirror: whether they recognized themselves or not, they were just as likely to act as if their reflection were a social partner or an audience, as opposed to just a reflection (which is how the autistic children tended to treat their reflections, if indeed they recognized them as such). The children with Down syndrome tended to do *more* social relating with the reflection if they passed the MSR test, which seems counterintuitive to me. You'd think someone would be more likely to try to establish a rapport with something they believed to be another person, rather than with what they knew was only an image of themselves. (Oh, well --- like I said before, I'm no developmental psychologist!)So, what do this study's authors (the University of Portsmouth's... Read more »
Reddy, V., Williams, E., Costantini, C., & Lan, B. (2010) Engaging with the self: Mirror behaviour in autism, Down syndrome and typical development. Autism, 14(5), 531-546. DOI: 10.1177/1362361310370397
- November 30, 2009
- 02:25 AM
- 551 views
The Fusiform Face Area: Not a Site of Autistic Difference After All?
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Discusses a review article by Bouthenia Jemel, Laurent Mottron and Michelle Dawson that finds inconsistent evidence for atypical fusiform-gyrus activity in autistic people looking at faces. I also review two fMRI studies of face processing in autism that came out after Jemel et al. (2006) was published.... Read more »
Dalton KM, Nacewicz BM, Johnstone T, Schaefer HS, Gernsbacher MA, Goldsmith HH, Alexander AL, & Davidson RJ. (2005) Gaze fixation and the neural circuitry of face processing in autism. Nature neuroscience, 8(4), 519-26. PMID: 15750588
Jemel, B., Mottron, L., & Dawson, M. (2006) Impaired Face Processing in Autism: Fact or Artifact?. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 36(1), 91-106. DOI: 10.1007/s10803-005-0050-5
Neumann D, Spezio ML, Piven J, & Adolphs R. (2006) Looking you in the mouth: abnormal gaze in autism resulting from impaired top-down modulation of visual attention. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 1(3), 194-202. PMID: 18985106
Pelphrey KA, Sasson NJ, Reznick JS, Paul G, Goldman BD, & Piven J. (2002) Visual scanning of faces in autism. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 32(4), 249-61. PMID: 12199131
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