autism subtypes

[mellowtigger]

I've mentioned once or twice what I recognize as an autism subtype, the talkative versus the quiet groups. Some of us are compelled to try being social, particularly via vocalization, and some of us aren't. I find the skill level of such socialization (which is used in diagnostic criteria) less interesting a topic or grouping than the initial compulsion to socialize. Some have it, and some don't. I'm in the "don't" camp, perfectly capable of vocalizing but trending toward not. My monkeysphere is quite small, and I almost never feel an urge to expand it.

I've seen before where researchers tried their own efforts at subtyping. One study found 3 groups, but it wasn't particularly helpful because they "purposely made this data have three subtypes in each group by differentiating their global means". Sure, they found some behavioral distinctions from their almost-arbitrary groupings, but that's not the sort of subtyping that I'm hoping for.

Does anyone have access to this study and could summarize the 4 types that they identified? They're using objective means to identify biological distinctions, which is exactly what I'm hoping for. Even this summary doesn't explain what they found. :(

Comments

[mellowtigger]

Thanks for checking. I figure that a reporter somewhere will eventually summarize it well. I'm just being impatient. :)

[kathmandu]

This looks like a secondary-press article that might be useful, if you haven't already seen it?
https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/brain-connectivity-behavior-flag-four-autism-subtypes/

[mellowtigger]

Thanks for adding. Yes, I've seen that one but didn't much like the (lack of) detail there. This one crossed my feeds a day or two ago, and it goes into much more detail about the 4 groups.

"Those advances allowed the team to identify four clinically distinct groups of people with autism. Two of the groups had above-average verbal intelligence. One group also had severe deficits in social communication but less repetitive behaviors, while the other had more repetitive behaviors and less social impairment. The connections between the parts of the brain that process visual information and help the brain identify the most salient incoming information were hyperactive in the subgroup with more social impairment. These same connections were weak in the group with more repetitive behaviors... The other two groups had severe social impairments and repetitive behaviors but had verbal abilities at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Despite some behavioral similarities, the investigators discovered completely distinct brain connection patterns in these two subgroups.
https://neurosciencenews.com/asd-subtypes-machine-learning-22968/

They go on to talk about the possibility of pairing specific therapies with specific subtypes. They mention oxytocin in particular being associated with only some of the 4 groups, meaning it might be helpful for some but irrelevant to others.