Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins • Hacker News Board

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#311

Post by kelseyfrog » Sun, May 12, 2024, 3:34 PM UTC

tsoukase wrote: post #252

kelseyfrog wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you eliminate models where brain damage is a proximate cause?

Exclusion of either cause directions is impossible by definition. This is science not mathematics. But saying that the primary mechanism of mental disease lies outside the brain must not contradict decades of research and simple observation (eg a small brain damage leads to a profound behavioural image while cutting 5 meters of small intestine to none) Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Why the reliance on physical trauma explanations? How do you rule out biochemical models of disease?

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#312

Post by ModernMech » Sun, May 12, 2024, 3:53 PM UTC

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #305

ModernMech wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that when you teach society that a certain “kind” of person needs to be culled, that is a stigma about people in that group. IME such strong feelings don’t don’t stay relegated to your personal choices, they get reflected at a broader policy level. People say “well it was your choice to have such broken people, we gave you a pill that would make that not possible. Therefore we las a society will not su…

We get that same argument from deaf people… so they stop deaf babies from getting their hearing corrected at birth and they firebomb the clinics. They say it’s basically the holocaust because you’re exterminating deaf people by curing them. Do you support their views?

I am not familiar with the deaf community nor the controversy surrounding curing deafness. If you're asking me if I support firebombing clinics, no. I don't know what incident you're referring to.

I looked up some info and I find the issue to be far more complicated than you've summarized. One thing I note is that 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents. They are making a decision about implants for an infant based on a reality they want the infant to experience, but they wouldn't even know any alternative way of living. Why do they get to make the decision for the child? Deaf people live like the rest of us. They face struggles, yet they live full happy rich lives.

Devices like implants don't come without risks and drawbacks. For people used to deaf culture, they have to learn how to integrate into hearing society, which can be frustrating and also lead to ridicule, shame, and embarrassment. The devices can be broken and can be distracting and annoying. I can understand why many would not opt for them, and would advocate against them when there is a ready and willing culture to receive deaf people as they are.

Maybe some people choose these implants and that's what they want. That's fine. No one is stopping them from doing that.

But I don't exactly see why hearing people are deciding that they must "cure" their child's deafness. I read that people are calling it child abuse. See, that's something I can't get behind, and it's an admission that our society is abusive toward people with differences.

That's not a reason to genetically alter people so that they conform to the abusive society, it's a reason to change society so that it doesn't abuse people with differences.

So again, I'm not familiar with this debate, here is some info I looked up:

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-deaf-people-turn-down-co...

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#313

Post by squigz » Sun, May 12, 2024, 3:55 PM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #310

squigz wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the poster was simply asking a question and you replied with sarcasm. They were not simply asking a question - in that case, they could've dropped the second part, which had exactly the same implication as my sarcastic reply. Anyway... > are you not worried that such efforts will further stigmatize autistic people as in need of a cure without ever actually offering one? No, I'm not, because I don't see them as bein…

> They were not simply asking a question - in that case, they could've dropped the second part, which had exactly the same implication as my sarcastic reply. The intended implication was that the typical "parents of" Facebook group does not count as an autistic community. In my experience, the alleged "autistic community" has always turned out to be something of that nature, but I've only found that out after a lengt…

Well I do appreciate you making my point quite clearly for me.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#314

Post by ModernMech » Sun, May 12, 2024, 4:06 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #270

mrangle wrote: post #215

>suramin They're investigating the use of a drug that they don't understand to treat a condition that they don't understand, through the lens of one model that variously competes with or incompletely conforms to a myriad of other models of the condition. In order to what? Nebulously "manage" a complex neurological difference that will always defy reversion to anything else? It sounds like they want something that the…

They're investigating the use of a drug that they don't understand to treat a condition that they don't understand... You'd probably be shocked to figure out how often this happens - and it used to happen a lot more in no small part because we didn't have the tools we have today: MRIs and better microscopes and other tech has really helped our understanding of the body. We are still figuring out how exactly the body…

My ex was schizoaffective. They thought BP1 for a while, but then she started hallucinating while baseline. Anyway, I've seen her take all the meds. Some work sometimes. Then they don't. Most of the time we'd be dealing with symptoms of the meds, which are not easy. When she was completely manic even the highest dose of some meds would not work for her. Actually a side effect of one of the meds had the same symptoms as schizophrenia, so in that case what was even the point?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroleptic-induced_deficit_sy...

  Neuroleptic-induced deficit syndrome (NIDS) is a psychopathological syndrome that develops in some patients who take high doses of an antipsychotic for an extended time... characterized by the same symptoms that constitute the negative symptoms of schizophrenia

You're right, a lot of times it seems like they just wanted to give her a pill and strap her down to a bed. Good sleep was far more important to regulating her wellbeing, but that was very difficult with the side effect of akathisia, which is common of antipsychotics. So it became a matter of upping the dose until it would make her pass out after hours of writhing pain. A daily occurrence.

So I could see why taking the meds were difficult.

If you told me I could take a pill to cure my autism but it would have the same symptoms as an antipsychotic, no thank you I wouldn't do it.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#315

Post by odyssey7 » Sun, May 12, 2024, 4:14 PM UTC

cja wrote: post #256

throwaway092323 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Self diagnosis is not reliable Professional diagnosis is not reliable either. ADHD and autism are often misdiagnosed as one-another, especially in girls. > If you don't have an official diagnosis you can't be certain you really have ADHD A lot of the time, the mental health professional making the determination doesn't have specialty in ADHD/Autism. All they're doing is looking at symptoms and making their best gue…

Professional assessors should know much more about the condition for which they are assessing and its signs than any one person who may or may not have the condition. A professional should also know the other conditions with similar symptoms. I learned about ADHD for six months until I first consulted an expert about the possibility of my having it. He was able to recognise symptoms in me that I hadn't noticed.

Glad you got a good provider, but that’s anecdata. You kind of acknowledge this with the word choice “should.”

As the old joke goes, “what do you call the person who graduated last in their medical school class?”

One estimate [1] states that over 400,000 people die due to medical errors in the US every year.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23860193/

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#316

Post by immibis » Sun, May 12, 2024, 4:18 PM UTC

elcritch wrote: post #167

huijzer wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there is a clear result found and then post hoc there is an explanation made for why this makes sense. That's a bit of a red flag since you preferably hypothesize first, but let's look at the analysis. If I'm not mistaken, then these are the most important parts: - 467 measured metabolites (features) - 136 males and 69 females = 205 (data points) - "To minimize overfitting, only correlations with q values Then the…

> So there is a clear result found and then post hoc there is an explanation made for why this makes sense. That's a bit of a red flag since you preferably hypothesize first, but let's look at the analysis. Eh, this doesn’t look to be a P-hacking attempt. Scientific exploration doesn’t always hit the hypothesis first model. Ideally this paper should be a source of future specific hypothesis and experiments. Though, I…

Getting 80000 measurements and then accepting a 1-in-20 false positive rate, however, sounds like P-hacking.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#317

Post by immibis » Sun, May 12, 2024, 4:20 PM UTC

gizmondo wrote: post #293

ModernMech wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that when you teach society that a certain “kind” of person needs to be culled, that is a stigma about people in that group. IME such strong feelings don’t don’t stay relegated to your personal choices, they get reflected at a broader policy level. People say “well it was your choice to have such broken people, we gave you a pill that would make that not possible. Therefore we las a society will not su…

The slippery slope scenario you described didn't happen with the Down syndrome for which there is a reliable screening. There are a few people want to ban that screening and they use exactly the same arguments (also it's eugenics!). We're lucky that at least these people are rightfully viewed as insane.

How hasn't it happened? Is there government support for parents of Down syndrome children?

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#318

Post by tredre3 » Sun, May 12, 2024, 4:21 PM UTC

zazazache wrote: post #294

cwillu wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been diagnosed, it really bothers me when people tell me I'm not allowed to want to not be this way. For some people, it's a hell.

That’s even worse, of course you are allowed your own feelings. What gives me the creeps is when people start talking about prevention it easily slides into eugenics or other things that deny poeople agency or even their humanity. There is a similar thing for deaf people. Or how screening for Down’s has changed the reality of raising a child with it.

If there is a way to prevent your child a life of hardship resulting from being deaf or born with down's syndrome, are you genuinely saying you wouldn't do it?

It's one thing to be content with who you are, it's another to deliberately impose hardship on someone when it could be avoided.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#319

Post by ModernMech » Sun, May 12, 2024, 4:24 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #303

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got my autism diagnosis in my early 20s (from a licensed psychologist, before you ask). It was a life-changing experience for me. Suddenly I was able to understand and validate my experiences and shortcomings, and to improve myself based on that understanding, instead of resigning myself to the fact that I’ll always just be a ‘weird’ human with ‘weird’ opinions, feelings and experiences. I suppose though that since…

Why do you think things like astrology persisted for so long? If not for the Church (which banned astrological prediction as blasphemous contradicting religious belief in self determination), it'd almost certainly still be with us. In fact when founding modern psychology Jung was heavily influenced by astrology. See - astrological psychology. [1] And his earliest work was with schizophrenia, from which the invention…

Yes all people are weird, and autistic people are people, so it's no surprise they are weird. I don't think this is a failing of Western imagination, I'm not sure who gave you this impression.

Autism isn't about being weird or quirky though -- it's a developmental disorder and the behaviors associated with it are disabling in our society. This is characterize as having "significant impact" on ability to function.

Re: Metabolism of autism reveals developmental origins

#320

Post by ModernMech » Sun, May 12, 2024, 4:29 PM UTC

somenameforme wrote: post #309

MajimasEyepatch wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s this thing people online tend to do where they’ll take a well-defined word or phrase like autism spectrum disorder and just decide that it actually should mean something else and get mad when everyone else uses the word in the “wrong” way. It consistently derails conversations, and it almost never brings anyone around to a place of greater understanding.

I'm not arguing over the semantics. I am rejecting the entire concept in its overly broad state. Imagine somebody said 'Oh don't worry about your weird coworker. He's just acts that way because he's a Sagittarius.' Obviously you'd look at them pretty cockeyed. I'm not arguing about what a Sagittarius is, but rejecting the idea of it having a well enough defined meaning to ultimately mean anything. Of course millennia…

What you are seeing is the effect of acceptance and awareness, not overly broad diagnostic criteria. It's not reasonable to extrapolate from these rates to half the population.

We are talking about human brains and psyche here, not much is known, and it's hard to conduct falsifiable experiments. If this upsets you, don't concern yourself with such endeavors, who asked you? Not every truth is found through the scientific method. Others are telling you that their diagnosis gave them peace and understand, a foundation on which to build an identity. Why are you here trying to take that away from people? What is your reasoning for making these arguments?