40 posts · 30,349 views
This blog has a lot of different emphases: the posts that I export here will be summaries (with a fair amount of explanation and critique) of peer-reviewed autism research in various fields, plus the occasional review post on a single autism-related topic that cites many articles. I also write a lot about autism advocacy/neurodiversity, disability rights, feminism, books and representations of autism in literature.
Lindsay
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- December 12, 2010
- 04:45 PM
- 929 views
Fetal Testosterone and Autistic Traits - Part III: Empathy
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Looks at two studies by Simon Baron-Cohen's research group that look for relationships between testosterone levels during gestation (as measured in mothers' amniotic fluid) and children's development of empathy. Empathy is assessed three ways: children's versions of the Empathy Quotient (which the parents answer about the children) and the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test), and by tracking children's use of mentalizing language in their narration of a wordless computer-animated short film.... Read more »
Chapman, E., Baron-Cohen, S., Auyeung, B., Knickmeyer, R., Taylor, K., & Hackett, G. (2006) Fetal testosterone and empathy: Evidence from the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" Test. Social Neuroscience, 1(2), 135-148. DOI: 10.1080/17470910600992239
KNICKMEYER, R., BARONCOHEN, S., RAGGATT, P., TAYLOR, K., & HACKETT, G. (2006) Fetal testosterone and empathy. Hormones and Behavior, 49(3), 282-292. DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2005.08.010
- December 12, 2010
- 04:11 PM
- 582 views
What Is Systemizing?
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
A close look at the surprisingly elusive concept central to Simon Baron-Cohen's extreme male brain theory of autism... Read more »
Baron-Cohen, S. (2002) The extreme male brain theory of autism. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6(6), 248-254. DOI: 10.1016/S1364-6613(02)01904-6
Baron-Cohen, S., Richler, J., Bisarya, D., Gurunathan, N., & Wheelwright, S. (2003) The systemizing quotient: an investigation of adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism, and normal sex differences. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 358(1430), 361-374. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2002.1206
- December 10, 2010
- 05:18 PM
- 1,193 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
- November 18, 2010
- 11:40 PM
- 851 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
- November 8, 2010
- 02:52 PM
- 1,397 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
- November 6, 2010
- 05:32 PM
- 687 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
- 891 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
- September 15, 2010
- 03:31 PM
- 969 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
- August 22, 2010
- 07:40 PM
- 717 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
- May 26, 2010
- 05:37 PM
- 265 views
A Little Bit More About Empathy
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Reproduces, with commentary, raw data (in the form of psychological test scores) from a study of emotional self-awareness and its effect on ability to empathize, as well as how both of those factors are affected by autism. Test scores are broken down by subscale, with special attention called to those scores that don't fit the commonly-accepted pattern of diminished empathic ability in autism... Read more »
Silani, G., Bird, G., Brindley, R., Singer, T., Frith, C., & Frith, U. (2007) Levels of emotional awareness and autism: An fMRI study. Social Neuroscience, 3(2), 97-112. DOI: 10.1080/17470910701577020
- May 24, 2010
- 11:33 PM
- 627 views
Autism, Alexithymia and Empathy
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Describes two fMRI studies of brain activity during empathy-related tasks, contrasting autistic with non-autistic subjects and correlating brain activity with scores on psychological tests of alexithymia (the inability to put one's feelings into words)... Read more »
Silani G, Bird G, Brindley R, Singer T, Frith C, & Frith U. (2008) Levels of emotional awareness and autism: an fMRI study. Social neuroscience, 3(2), 97-112. PMID: 18633852
- April 29, 2010
- 09:12 PM
- 973 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
- December 1, 2009
- 07:41 PM
- 677 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
- November 30, 2009
- 02:25 AM
- 716 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
- July 17, 2009
- 10:54 PM
- 574 views
Weak Signals, Lots of Noise: Problems with fMRI Brain Scanning
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Discussion of a meta-analysis of 55 recent social-neuroscience studies using fMRI, and the self-fulfilling nature of many of the correlations those studies uncover. According to Edward Vul and his co-investigators, many fMRI studies used "functional criteria" --- i.e., is the area of the brain active or not during the study task --- to select voxels (fMRI data points) for inclusion in a statistical analysis looking for correlations with behavioral data. Since functional measures are also used to determine the results of the study, their earlier use as selection criteria for inclusion in the study seems to me to be circular, and Vul et al. argue that this method of voxel selection can create correlations out of thin air. ... Read more »
Vul, E., Harris, C., Winkielman, P., & Pashler, H. (2009) Puzzlingly High Correlations in fMRI Studies of Emotion, Personality, and Social Cognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4(3), 274-290. DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01125.x
- June 3, 2009
- 08:56 PM
- 265 views
Is Everyone a Bit of a Synesthete?
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Sensory input of one type (e.g., tactile) can influence sensory perception of another type (e.g., auditory), according to this 2009 study of the effect of facial-skin stretching on auditory processing of ambiguous vowel sounds.... Read more »
Ito, T., Tiede, M., & Ostry, D. (2009) Somatosensory function in speech perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(4), 1245-1248. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0810063106
- March 17, 2009
- 11:15 PM
- 559 views
Autism in Somali Immigrant Communities: Epidemic, Coincidence or Genetic Pattern?
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Discussion of a potential "autism cluster" within the Somali immigrant community in Minneapolis, MN, with reference to a study done under similar circumstances in Stockholm, Sweden.... Read more »
Barnevik-Olsson M, Gillberg C, & Fernell E. (2008) Prevalence of autism in children born to Somali parents living in Sweden: a brief report. Developmental medicine and child neurology, 50(8), 598-601. PMID: 18754897
- February 3, 2009
- 11:55 PM
- 712 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
- October 19, 2008
- 12:00 AM
- 571 views
Rational Choice Theory: Not as Dead as You Think
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Discusses an fMRI study of autistic people given a hypothetical choice between two amounts of money; the choice is a test of the "framing effect," which is the tendency most people have of choosing the amount of money that's described in positive terms, rather than the objectively larger amount. ... Read more »
De Martino, B. (2006) Frames, Biases, and Rational Decision-Making in the Human Brain. Science, 313(5787), 684-687. DOI: 10.1126/science.1128356
De Martino, B., Harrison, N., Knafo, S., Bird, G., & Dolan, R. (2008) Explaining Enhanced Logical Consistency during Decision Making in Autism. Journal of Neuroscience, 28(42), 10746-10750. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2895-08.2008
- September 14, 2008
- 12:00 AM
- 333 views
Study: Women Do Better than Men on Citalopram
by Lindsay in Autist's Corner
Compares results of two large-scale studies of sex differences in response to SSRI drugs: one testing very low doses of sertraline, the other testing somewhat higher doses of citalopram. ... Read more »
Thiels C, Linden M, Grieger F, & Leonard J. (2005) Gender differences in routine treatment of depressed outpatients with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor sertraline. International clinical psychopharmacology, 20(1), 1-7. PMID: 15602108
Young EA, Kornstein SG, Marcus SM, Harvey AT, Warden D, Wisniewski SR, Balasubramani GK, Fava M, Trivedi MH, & John Rush A. (2009) Sex differences in response to citalopram: a STAR*D report. Journal of psychiatric research, 43(5), 503-11. PMID: 18752809
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