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Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

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Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#71

Post by SubiculumCode »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #51
SubiculumCode wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you believe in mind-body dualism, then your objection of the neuro morpheme is on shaky ground. All psychiatric disorders ARE neurological...i.e. is rooted in the brain and associated systems. Moreover, there are plenty of neurological differences between ASD and TD groups, both at the cellular and morphological levels. However, a lot of the morphological differences are too small, and heterogeneity too large,…

The problem with your reasoning is that you assume that what psychiatrists group together based on behavior and culture must share single identifiable neurological causes. It's entirely possible that there is nothing neurologically objectively different about an autistic person from a non-autistic person, and that it's simply a cultural quirk that led to it; this has been the case with many historical diagnoses. In f…

No where did I assume a 1-1 correspondence between psychiatric label and neurological cause. Many disorders likely show variation precisely because they have different underlying causes....much like a car might not start for a number of reasons, including faulty wiring, bad battery, bad starter, no fuel, etc. It is also this heterogeneity of underlying causes that make precise neurological diagnosis difficult.

Nevertheless, the biggest claim is trying to claim that some behavior/symptomology/quirk does not involve the brain.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#72

Post by SubiculumCode »

danielheath wrote: post #65
throw998 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

disappears if you control for the fact that older men have children with older women

Thank goodness there’s a throwaway here to make unsourced claims to argue with a postdoc in the field. Otherwise we might not get both sides of the story.

I was a bit lazy about sources wasn't I also :) Here is a nice Spectrum article that covers it. https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/link-parental-age-autism-e...

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#73

Post by danielheath »

rsstack wrote: post #69
danielheath wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to focus more deeply than the general population is quite valuable in a world where technological progress requires increasing specialisation.

Can you continue your line of thought? This ability, which is extremely rare, is quite valuable. What's the next step, the conclusion?

It’s also one of the diagnostic criteria for ASD, one that almost all autistic people share.

They typically can’t deliberately choose the subject of the focus, but it’s usually the case that any bit of deep knowledge is useful for something.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#74

Post by macksd »

alisonkisk wrote: post #21
macksd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a movement to reframe things like autism as neurodiversity rather than strictly a disorder. I suppose the emphasis in that case would instead be on things people can do well, not what they do wrong by everyone else's standard.

"Neurodiversity" and "Neurodivergence" are browser terms than "autism". And calling any single person "diverse" is icky.

At no point in my comment did I imply anything to the contrary. "things like autism" does not refer to autism exclusively nor to a person.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#75

Post by selimthegrim »

danielheath wrote: post #63
trhway wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you see, mentally right now choosing between neurodiversity and selection you voted for selection.

Okay, fair enough: that was a shit way for me to make a point. There's nothing wrong with preferring that people have the ability to communicate with others (vs them not having that ability). The moral issue is externally-enforced selection (AKA eugenics), which seems to persistently rear its ugly head as soon as you start talking about disability. My friend (edit: redacted) chose not to have kids, because every ance…

How’s he doing on the cancer front so far?

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#76

Post by danielheath »

selimthegrim wrote: post #75
danielheath wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, fair enough: that was a shit way for me to make a point. There's nothing wrong with preferring that people have the ability to communicate with others (vs them not having that ability). The moral issue is externally-enforced selection (AKA eugenics), which seems to persistently rear its ugly head as soon as you start talking about disability. My friend (edit: redacted) chose not to have kids, because every ance…

How’s he doing on the cancer front so far?

He's made it to 50 via monthly blood tests, early intervention & staying extremely fit. Has still had more than his share of chemotherapy though.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#77

Post by scruple »

JPKab wrote: post #7

Something that has struck out to me for many years now is the rather striking lack of reporting on the incredibly strong correlation between parental (both maternal/paternal) age at time of conception and ASM. My nephew is autistic. He is my sister's youngest, and is 10 years younger than his sibling. This isn't a coincidence. Parents who have their children in their mid 30s and later are orders of magnitude more lik…

> An additional topic related to this that goes undiscussed is the massive increase in twins

That's not just the realm of IVF. My wife and I have fraternal twins. She was 35 when we conceived. It turns out that as women approach menopause they may drop more than one egg during ovulation. This effect is noticed dramatically at age 35. I think I recall reading that your chances of a natural twins birth goes from 4% at age 35...

And, of course, in addition to that, once you have your first multiples pregnancy the odds of any subsequent pregnancy being a multiples also goes up.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#78

Post by microtherion »

rsstack wrote: post #25
alisonkisk wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"behavioral impairment" is a social judgement, not a biological flaw. Homosexuality was long considered a psychiatric disorder, so be careful putting blind faith in psychiatric judgements.

Many people with ASD (not all! not most! but many) can barely survive on their own. I'm not talking about "too shy to buy groceries". ASD should be prevented medically. That is not to say people with ASD aren't often amazing people or that their lives aren't worth it, but minimizing the rate at which ASD occurs will mean far fewer people will suffer in the future from something that is (hopefully) preventable.

> Many people with ASD (not all! not most! but many) can barely survive on their own

That part is absolutely true.

> ASD should be prevented medically.

But this part (apart from the fact that it's not currently feasible) is just too categoric. I certainly know several autistic people who would prefer to get rid of their autism, if given a choice. But I know plenty on the milder end of the spectrum who would not — e.g. because their distress in social situations is outweighed by the benefits conveyed by an increased ability to focus.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#79

Post by imtringued »

danielheath wrote: post #63
trhway wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you see, mentally right now choosing between neurodiversity and selection you voted for selection.

Okay, fair enough: that was a shit way for me to make a point. There's nothing wrong with preferring that people have the ability to communicate with others (vs them not having that ability). The moral issue is externally-enforced selection (AKA eugenics), which seems to persistently rear its ugly head as soon as you start talking about disability. My friend (edit: redacted) chose not to have kids, because every ance…

Wouldn't it be justified to find a family member in his family tree that did not follow this "rule of thumb"?

Then you merely have to marry someone from that same family.

Or just marry a single mother who already has children.

Re: Mother's blood test predicts a sub-type of autism

#80

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #43
SargeZT wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barely can be an understatement. My youngest sister is severely autistic and absolutely couldn't survive without a strong support system, both from the state and our family. She lives in a group home with 19 other people in a similar state. With that said, due to my exposure to autism through my sister, I have seen cases that are far worse than hers. Completely non-verbal people with autism, those who experience pani…

> We tend to focus on the lighter end of the spectrum, where people can lead functional and fulfilling lives. There's a form of survivorship bias here: the greater the degree of impairment, the less broad social contacts the person is likely to have, so on average most people's experience is going to have people who have less severe impairments overrepresented compared to their relative frequency among those with the…

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