An immune molecule can sometimes influence the social behavior of mice: study
news.mit.edu
news.mit.edu
Pulled right from the article. Studies in mice are simply a way to point in the, hopefully, "right" direction without having to shoot in the dark with human test subjects needlessly.
The cynic in me feels that some researchers are running out of ideas. The only experimental apparatus are poor knockout mice.
Arguably an analogy is trying to fix a compiled binary with a hex editor and replacing all your 0x11s with 0x0a. Then claiming the segfault is a good model of how another binary crashes (due to a null pointer exception or whatever really).
Sure, the question is whether that direction significantly better than a randomly selected direction
I thought that was already clearly established.
What I wonder if baseline mice produce IL-17a in response to inflammation?
My guess would be no. I would also wonder if some low to moderate infection in mothers can spare the offspring from autism, but still prime IL production?
See references in this article, because I have trouble copying them on mobile.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/darwins-subterrane...
So in other words...
:P
(No it is not funny, because people and children dying because of this bullshit)
Also, I thought the joke was funny; I highly doubt there are any genuine anti-vaxxers in HN comments.
However, the risk of getting sick from the vaccine is small compared to the risk of getting sick without the vaccine. When the risk levels get close to equal, the vaccine type is changed to the less-risky but less-effective type.
Attenuated virus vaccines are usually more effective than inactive virus ones.
So if you get your kid sick enough you can temporarily pretend they aren't autistic, and really put to the test the idea that anti-vaxxers think autism is worse than being deathly ill?
> In 2016, they showed that mice born to mothers who experience a severe infection during pregnancy are much more likely to show behavioral symptoms such as deficits in sociability, repetitive behaviors, and abnormal communication.
They should look for children who had the risk factor (infected mother) but didn't turn autistic to see if they have the levels elevated. Long shot.
Anything can "reduce autism symptoms" that can make a neurotypical person unable to behave normally. Autistic behavior IS the normal for autistic people. Heavy sedatives, just like being very sick, can "reduce autism symptoms" since the person would be too tired to exhibit any behaviors at all.
"Look, he's not flapping and pacing! His autism must be cured!" No, you dolt, he's exhausted and miserable from being sick.
Leave autistic people alone and let them be themselves. Seriously, I can't believe some people would rather let their kid die of polio than believe they could be autistic. If you think having an autistic child is that terrible, you probably shouldn't have kids.
That's very much not the case, unfortunately. Many autistic kids are very low function. Their deviations in behavior are way more serious than just some quirky flipping and pacing.
But this is a bizarre strawman because vaccines do not cause autism.
I appreciate that's the sort of thing that happens at the extreme ends of the spectrum and not at all representative of many high-functioning autists, but I don't think it's terrible to have that as a fear.
I know I couldn't handle that lack of feedback.
Perhaps that's a severe failing, but there we are.
Autistic people are not sociopaths, they are not incapable of empathy or love, they just struggle to understand when you're expressing it, or to express it in appropriate way.
Your fear of being unable to communicate with your child is valid, but autistic people are not "broken".
It's not a nice thing to say or admit, but it is .. well, true.
I have an autistic uncle who is not profoundly so, but is hard to communicate with and has problems existing by himself, often getting into trouble that is hard for the rest of the family to understand the logic of.
Autistic kids are demonstrably not "incapable" of empathy as commonly understood. They may be impaired in their expression of it, but that's something quite different.
I should say-- I think it's often PDA misdiagnosed as ODD. Which is very sad for those ASD kids not getting the help they need (because the "treatments" for ODD are probably not going to work well on a PDA kid).
Indeed ASD people often suffer from extreme empathy e.g. towards animals or something upsetting on the news (war/famine/etc.)
While the fear is natural, there are tons of other childhood conditions that are, in fact, worse than autism.
Would you decline vaccines for yourself or your child because you fear they might "get autism" (which has been debunked).
Edit: clarity
And also nope, because we ran the gauntlet despite our slightly higher age and subsequent increase in probability of autism (amongst many, may other conditions).
As I say, I don't think it's wrong to fear the possibility, and as your post admirably points out, life is inherently full of risks.
And they are living in captivity, between plastic toys and hamster wheels. Males in a cage, and females in another cage. An environment that for its evolution probably would be seen as normal as for us being abducted by aliens and living in an alien zoo for our entire lifes.
And we are taking that and extrapolating it to explain the behaviour to a human children.
Would be ridiculous even for neurotypical children to expect them to behave like vicious sex driven mammals.
Autism is not a superpower.
Yes, sometimes mildly autistic people can become genius mathematicians, or whatever, but most of autistic people simply cannot function by themselves, they struggle with everyday things. So no, we can't just "leave them alone", we should try and understand what causes autism, and maybe someday we can cure it.
Why don't you ask an autistic person if they want to be cured? Go ahead. Jump on r/aspergers and ask them. They will tell you to go fly a kite.
I don't know why you have stated everyone would provide identical answers if asked about a cure for austism. A simple reddit search which I just did confirms there is a thread where some have been asked this question and said they would in fact sign up for a cure. Other answered "maybe". Many said "no". Nobody said "go fly a kite".
I will concede the majority of people appear to have answered no, but, again, that isn't a representative sample of the general population. More data would be needed to make a more general conclusion.
Please edit snarky swipes out of your comments here. The rest of this post would be just fine without that first bit.
I agree there is no need to treat autistic people who get along in society mostly fine, but people who can’t work, talk, or live on their own is probably where I would draw the line of those people needing actual treatment if it ever exists
There's an assumption here that NT socialization is the "correct" socialization. That NT behaviors, world-view, all that thing, is what is "normal" and "correct". This is just straight up bias. You want ASD people to be "normal" for your definition of normal but there's actually no natural law that makes it so. Just the tyranny of the majority.
The idea that an ill children tired and with less energy than usual would behave better is not a total surprise.
You present autistic children like they are all little Sheldons from the Big bang theory, when the reality couldn't be further from the truth.
Autism is a spectrum where a certain percentage of kids are as you say, but many can't do anything without the help of an adult and certainly aren't going to have 'uncommon hobbies' or 'cleverness'.
NT people are so broken in your own ways: relationships with parents, relationships with spouses, relationships with children, relationships with the environment: you don't get any of them right. You are all so broken and unhealthy! Why are you all on anti-anxiety meds, why are you all on anti-depressants? Every NT person I know makes so many weird decisions, against their own interests, against their own emotional health. You are broken in this world.
But for some reason it becomes so important that ASD people just "act more normal". Whatever.
But, putting that aside: these problems you're describing are all things that ASD people also have to deal with. People with ASD have strictly more problems than people without it, since they have all the "normal" problems, and then some other ones that only they suffer from (like the aforementioned sensory hypersensitivity.) The only differences that exist stem from people lowering their expectations of how people with ASD will perform on e.g. social tasks. Those tasks still need to get done; people on the spectrum just don't get the choice to be the one to do them, because other people make that choice for them. (Just like nobody asks a deaf person to transcribe audio for them, or asks a paraplegic to deliver a package for them.)
> But for some reason it becomes so important that ASD people just "act more normal".
I don't think anyone wants people with ASD to "act" any way that's hard for them. The point of the development of ASD treatments is to enable people to have the opportunity to choose how they want to be, rather than being locked into one part of behavior-space without having had such a choice.
To put it another way, by analogy to another community of sufferers: people with hearing can choose to put in earplugs. Deaf people cannot choose to put in hear-plugs. Because of this, being able to hear is a strict improvement over being deaf: you can choose to use it, or not, at any point.
But more importantly... nobody is asking ASD people to act “normally”. It’s just being noted that they tend to act in particular ways and suffer from particular stimuli and are generally more difficult for NT people to relate to.
My daughter, every time she has a cold, which since daycare is almost always.
Now they are older, and fever starts to knock them out sooner. Fever suppressants make them bouncy again still (so no rush to give them until 38.7-ish, as long as they drink well etc).
Normal male mice fight. You enter in my zone, I'll bite you and chase you off. Normal female mice are more tolerant with relatives and pups, but not with any other female. They can fight also with strange females.
This is the rule for the species and the definition of perfect and normal communication. "pacifist" or mesiah mice is anomalous and probably would send a really confusing message for the other mice.
"I'm too feverish and tired to fight right now, so let me alone" is common among animals and not necessarily related with autistic behaviour.