the mellow tigger's musings

autistic Neanderthals?

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 13:16:07 GMT

I've mentioned before my Neanderthal ancestry (and my curiously hairy ears), thanks to 23andMe genetic testing. Since that time, 23andMe has updated their findings, reporting me at <2% Neanderthal, but still my 268 variants they found (out of 7,462 tested) rates me at higher than 86% of their other customers.

Although I've mentioned the SPARK genetic database once before, apparently I've entirely neglected to mention that I've contributed to their database. After learning about their project during a local Minneapolis autism conference, I contributed saliva dna to their database back in 2016 April, as an adult with ASD. My non-ASD brother helpfully contributed too soon afterward. I didn't get the notice that "We have completed the genetic analysis of your saliva sample" until 2021 July.

I've written before that I suspect "autism represents a different (specifically, an older) form of human intellect." Now, there's some small evidence to add to that suspicion.

"It has been estimated that Eurasian-derived populations have approximately 2% Neanderthal DNA, which was acquired during introgression events occurring shortly after AMH migrated out of Africa [2, 3]. These hybridization events occurred somewhere between 47–65 thousand years ago (kya) [4]. A subset of Europeans later immigrated back into Africa approximately 20 kya, bringing some of this Neanderthal ancestry with them, such that all modern Africans have a small but measurable amount of Neanderthal DNA from the event [5].

Enrichment of Neanderthal DNA is also associated with enhanced neural connectivity within visual processing systems, particularly between the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the occipital cortex and fusiform gyrus, and decreased connectivity within the default mode (social) network [14, 16]. Importantly, many of these same connectivity patterns are recapitulated in autism, which is a major impetus for the current work.

In light of this evidence, in the current study we addressed whether Neanderthal DNA is enriched in autistic people and their siblings compared to ethnically-matched controls. We accessed whole exome sequencing (WES) for autistic probands and unaffected siblings from the Simons Foundation Powering Autism Research (SPARK) Database [21] for comparison against individuals in the Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) and 1000 Genomes (1000G) databases [22, 23]. Significant enrichment in the autism group was especially driven by rare Neanderthal-derived variants, but also some common variants, which suggests weak but ongoing purifying selection towards removal of some of these single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) from the human genome.

- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-024-02593-7, "Enrichment of a subset of Neanderthal polymorphisms in autistic probands and siblings"

I'm glad to see that SPARK's genetic collection continues to produce interesting associations. I look forward to future links with early Harappa civilization, potentially an example of what an autism-dominant culture could be like.

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we are not alone?

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 11:58:17 GMT

There's a fair chance that this news is a manufactured lie, unfortunately, so I'm placing this post behind a cut.

Read the news announcement...

This announcement is too important to wait for Moody Monday.

Read the news.

Watch the presentation.

Read the English translation.

The summary:

Bodies found preserved in a mine in Peru several years ago.
These humanoid bodies are about 1000 years old.
They have 3 fingers and 3 toes, with enlarged and extended skulls. Bone structure is light, like a bird.
They have eggs in their abdomen, like bird eggs.
They have fingerprints that are linear instead of whorled.
They have large metal implants, and cadmium and osmium have been identified.
Their dna is more different from humans than bacteria are different from humans, suggesting they are not of Earth origin.

I wish I could just take the day off from work to dive into every detail. There are reputable institutions involved, but is this presenter reputable? Maybe not, but this would be a complex lie to achieve.

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down the rabbit hole towards 37C (/98.6F)

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 03:44:22 GMT

Here's a good example of where my curiosity takes me.

It started with a pun on Mastodon, "Murder, She Roti".
What is roti? Oh, it's an unleavened bread.
What does that leave out? Various leavening agents.
Wait, there's a salt-leavened bread? No, that's a bad name, because there's no salt. It used to be stored in hot salt.
Wait, there's a bread that rises because of hydrogen instead of carbon dioxide? Yes, that bacterium is Clostridium perfringens.
Wait, that bacterium can cause a necrotizing disease, but people put it in their food?! Yes, but cooking destroys the bacteria to safe levels. Apparently. :/
If it's "safe", then how does it cause disease? It affects people who are protein deprived, which inhibits their trypsin production, which apparently deprives them of even more protein.

Wait, eating sweet potatoes does that too? Apparently so, unless you cook them well.

Why is trypsin important in the human body? Because trypsin begins the digestion process of protein molecules in the small intestine.
And... wait, what?! "Human trypsin has an optimal operating temperature of about 37 °C."?

That's the temperature for people living in the civilized world. For people in the USA, that's exactly 98.6 Fahrenheit.

So, I looked around and eventually found this publication.

Most hydrolyses have been reported at trypsin (EC 3.4.21.4) optimum conditions (pH 7.8 and 37 °C).

So... the obvious questions (and I haven't found any answers yet):

Is this molecule why humans evolved a body temperature of 37C/98.6F? If we deviate, then poor nutrition leaves us disadvantaged and subject to evolutionary culling?
What does this mean for our falling body temperature?
Other animals have different body temperatures (scroll upward to see the chart). Do they rely on some other process to kickstart their protein digestion?

I know humans have a weird intestinal digestion process, which is why we can't make use of the vitamin B12-producing bacteria that live in our gut. Other animals, however can use their own internally-hosted bacteria, so we eat their muscles, eggs, and livers to steal their bacteria-produced B12.

Are there some animals with the same temperature as humans, and do they have the same small intestine digestive process that we do?

Inquiring minds want to know.

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psychogenic lacrimation

Wed, 14 Sep 2022 17:32:36 GMT

I may need to find a new icon that shows tears. Once again, this post is not about Ukraine. They are doing rather well for themselves, though, during the unprovoked invasion of their nation. There are rumblings that they may even retake Crimea.

An interesting tweet today had me following some links to news about human tears.

Want to hear something amazing about crying? Emotional tears have higher protein concentration than irritant tears, which makes them fall down your cheeks more slowly—increasing the chance they’ll be seen and solicit care. In literal ways, your body is built for community.
- Twitter, Benjamin Perry, 2022 September 13

A very old article (from a writer here in the Twin Cites) noted back in 1982 that:

...it bodes ill for societal admonitions like "big boys don't cry" and such comforting words as "now, now, don't cry."
"We should comfort people without telling them to stop crying," Dr. Frey observed. "They do stop crying when they're comforted."
- NY Times, Jane Brody, 1982 August 31

Apparently there are 3 types of human tears.

Basal tears for constant eye lubrication.
Reflexive tears for removing irritants from the eye.
Psychic tears during high emotional states (positive or negative).

It's the psychic tear (psychogenic lacrimation) that is most curious. They seem chemically designed to promote social bonding. Fascinating. Of course, I immediately started searching for correlations between crying and autism. I couldn't tell there was anything notable. The same variety of crying propensity as everyone else, it seems. There is an interesting hint, however, that autistic baby cry vocalizations may be different. Treating any baby's cries with a social response (holding and transporting the infant for at least 5 minutes), seems to help. That's probably some useful info for new parents.

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are you ready for technological telepathy?

Wed, 17 Aug 2022 19:50:11 GMT

I've mentioned the phrase "technological telepathy" many times over the years, both here and other platforms. It's strange, though, that I've never devoted a post just to that one concept alone. Are you ready to know whatever can be known yet maintain your own emotional equilibrium and reasoned behavior? It's a tough ask, I know.

You're almost there now. In your hands, you probably have a cell phone with access to search engines to find much of recorded human history, knowledge, and theory, merely at a whim. You can also find Twitter, where passing thoughts from humans across the planet skitter around like angry ants in a disturbed anthill.

Quoting myself to jump start this discussion:

I'm convinced that science and engineering will give us what nature did not, the capacity to share (even steal) thoughts directly from other minds. If biological telepathy were real, then it would have a profound effect on all of evolution. That's a good argument against it, really. What happens to ecosystems when predator and prey know each other's thoughts?
https://mellowtigger.dreamwidth.org/294331.html, 2018 February 16

But nobody ever has any control over what happens to their words after they reach another person. Either keep your words to yourself, or share them with the world. There are no secrets in a world of technological telepathy; there is no forgetting in a world of digital memory. As a rule, I post publicly. I accept the consequences of my speech. Yes, there have been consequences.
https://mellowtigger.dreamwidth.org/244179.html, 2012 November 29

Basically, it's the hardest thing that people demand from their most intimate relationships: somebody knowing what we truly think and feel yet not abandoning us in their disapproval. I anticipate the social consequences that our technology inexorably carries us towards. The only solutions I see are either 1) no technology, or 2) social/psychological change in the human animal, and soon. The best legal salve I see is 3) the inviolate rule applied to every sapient brain that a mind must not ever be examined or altered without informed consent, so people can keep something private. This prohibition might extend to include necessary trust-mechanisms for safe self-examination: doctors, psychiatrists, priests, and maybe even our private journals, smart phones, and personal AIs.

I consider current privacy laws to be atavistic reactions against this inevitability, and I think they are doomed ultimately to failure. They hinder what must happen, which is the rapid (preferably immediate) review of historical data to in/validate any statement. Self-absolution can be dangerous, because it allows us to indefinitely postpone confronting a potentially harmful habit. What we have now is a boon to liars and charlatans. Consider a better alternative. Once you voluntarily release something from the confines of your own thoughts, then it ceases to be private or privileged. It now belongs to all of humanity because it is in the minds/memories of other people, which you are forbidden from controlling. And they can access your observable behavior (speech, writing, interactions), already fully indexed and footnoted with objective evidence for either the corroboration or the dispute of your perspective. "Documented anarchy", as some have written. There are no secret discussions or activities, if the audience is larger than your own internal thoughts.

Any lie would be quickly revealed. I think that the right to be forgotten (even to delete regretted Tweets) is dangerously close to legalized gaslighting, erasing external evidence to prevent the confirmation of someone else's memory of history that you want to avoid. Self-forgiveness can be necessary for growth too, but it should be part of our history rather than a forbidden topic. The only fair future gives us the right to access corporate and government memory too, their memos and video recordings and meeting notes where they discuss how to use our personal data. "Souveillance", as some have written. The unethical situation we have today is the asymmetric exercise of power to review. They have it; we don't.

Could you know every other person's complete history (dna, childhood, schooling, psych evaluations, sex history, job history), just with the asking, yet restrain your curiosity for the sake of equilibrium? Could you wisely and constructively use your freedom to ignore? That future is beginning to materialize now. How will you/we adapt to the knowledge of... well, everything? What "filters" do you employ for your own benefit? For instance, Dreamwidth includes "Age Restriction", but are there others that you would find useful? Is there a social protocol for brutal honesty?

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biology is wondrous

Mon, 21 Feb 2022 15:14:53 GMT

The universe is deliciously complex and offers wonders aplenty, from the small to the large.

The biochemical processes in our bodies are immensely intricate and "look" like robotic machinery in operation. Those atomic-level structures can be captured only in still images of dead tissue by electron microscope imaging. This weekend, I happened across a great video that shows both the complexity and the sheer speed of these processes. It offers what we would see if we could use electron scanning on live cells in motion. Sure, the video is a scripted animation (and the added sound track is annoying), but this visualization of what we know about biology is still amazing. The 3-minute marker is where we get to see some of the folding and interaction of complex molecules on a dna strand. This is what happens in every cell of our body in every moment.

It doesn't feel like any great leap of metaphor to see "life" at both the tiniest scale of unliving molecules and a vastly larger scale. The Gaia theory continues to gain acceptance, as with a new paper by astrobiologists who offer the idea of planetary-scale intelligence. It reminds me of the technologically-instantiated personality of our planet in David Brin's sci-fi book, "Earth". I believe that our planet will get there, if humans don't destroy our ecosystems (and ourselves) first.

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movie: On Body And Soul

Sat, 17 Feb 2018 05:47:28 GMT

"On Body And Soul" is a good movie, and it's currently available on Netflix USA. It's nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year. It has some disturbing aspects, but it's also unusually interesting for a romantic drama. Not only do critics like it, but it also currently scores 80% with audiences at Rotten Tomatoes.

It's set in Budapest, Hungary, at a slaughterhouse. An older man and a younger woman discover (after being interviewed by a psychologist trying to locate a thief at the business) that they are sharing the same recurring dreams. They walk together peacefully as deer and doe in a quiet forest. The woman is clearly autistic (although I don't think it's officially declared as such in the film), and she even shares my tactile sensitivities. This story is about their discovery of their dream life together and then the possibility of romance between them.

Fair warning, though, the film is set in a slaughterhouse and does show (non-explicitly) animals that are actually killed and harvested for meat. The credits of the film end with a statement to that effect. The animals were not harmed for the purpose of filming, merely as documentation of what is normal operation in a slaughterhouse. Also, and here's the one that might kick you in the emotional gut, it shows her disturbingly realistic suicide attempt. There's no way to talk around that scene. Her character survives, but that outcome doesn't make it any less graphic and disturbing.

The thing about the film that truly intrigues me though is their shared dreaming. I'm not sure that I've explicitly written about these events, but that sort of thing has happened to me before.

First, there was John. You know that scene in Star Trek: Insurrection where Picard's love interest slows down time for him? She later teaches him about "perfect moments" in time. It was like that for me. There was a day when I traveled from college to visit John as he was also visiting Austin, Texas, for the SXSW music festival. I walked in the front door, his hosts left their house to drive somewhere, and we immediately fell to the couch in each other's arms. I heard them driving away, then the very next second (from my perspective), I heard their car driving back to the house. No time had passed for me, no sleep that I recognized, nothing. One moment to the next in simple contentment, just like the later Star Trek scene. It was like that for me, anyway. John, however, once referred negatively to the "Vulcan" (telepathic) talent I had. He professed emotions to match mine, but he simply walked away, so clearly he didn't feel the same. That wasn't the only time that I scared someone off by my weirdness, though.

ANIJ: You stop reviewing what happened yesterday, ...stop planning for tomorrow. ...Let me ask you a question. ...Have you ever experienced a perfect moment in time?
PICARD: A perfect moment?
ANIJ: When time seemed to stop ...and you could almost live in that moment.
PICARD: Seeing my home planet from space for the first time.
ANIJ: Exactly. Nothing more complicated than perception. ...You explore the universe. We have discovered that a single moment in time can be a universe in itself, ...full of powerful forces. ...Most people aren't aware enough of the now to even notice.
PICARD: I wish I could spare a few centuries to learn.
ANIJ: It took us centuries to learn that it doesn't have to take centuries to learn it.
- Star Trek: Insurrection

Later, there was Carl (my longest relationship, at only 1.5 years). We were living together at that point, in his first townhouse near Pease Park near downtown Austin, Texas. We were putting on our running shoes in the garage, in preparation for one of his runs where I just tried to keep up with him. I told him about my dream from the prior night. I included the details about where each of us sat and vaguely what he was doing there. He never commented on my story. He looked up at me from tying his shoes, then he told me with a stern tone of voice, "Stay out of my dreams." We never spoke of it again, and I never dreamed with him again. I had a hard(er) time opening up with him after that, since it's not easy to get over rejection by your partner.

Finally, there was Fred (my last relationship, 20 years ago). While I didn't share space with him in quite the same way, he did start having dreams that affected him. He had one dream in particular that motivated him to leave town suddenly one day. He thought his sister was in trouble. We attended her wedding together, and I didn't begrudge the family emergency. I know that dreams can be strong motivators.

Things always get weird with the sleeping and dreaming. Readers here know that I don't typically remember my dreams, hence my dream journal entries in this blog. I figured I should record them so someday I could review them for frequency or commonality. And those normal dreams are always in black and white. I do have other dreams, rare dreams, that are in vivid living color, but those are even more private than the things I've mentioned above.

I write frequently about technological telepathy. I'm convinced that science and engineering will give us what nature did not, the capacity to share (even steal) thoughts directly from other minds. If biological telepathy were real, then it would have a profound effect on all of evolution. That's a good argument against it, really. What happens to ecosystems when predator and prey know each other's thoughts?

But take a quick look at search results for "autism telepathy", and you'll see lots of anecdotal stories about something weird going on. At this moment, the top link is a CNN iReport about the weirdness of the frequency of these examples. I still prefer to live in a world without humans, but maybe it would also be interesting to find romance with someone who didn't freak when their dreamworld tilted. If there's something more happening than mere coincidence, then I would like to learn.

So... good movie. Autistic woman, shared dreams. I approve.

P.S. 2018 March 4 Sunday: I saw the recent news that brain waves synchronize when one partner empathizes with another partner in pain. Moreover, a pain relief effect increases with the greater empathy from the non-pained partner. Very interesting. - https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/hes-not-just-saying-he-feels-her-pain-he-really-is/

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humans should avoid eating mammals

Wed, 31 Dec 2014 03:57:43 GMT

Scientists may have finally discovered why red meat is bad for humans. Vegetarians score a big win with this new discovery, because the consequence is inescapable for any of us. Given that this genetic change appeared 2-3 million years ago as the Homo genus made its appearance in the world, it seems that we (unlike modern apes) are designed specifically not to eat red meat.

We already know that red meat is associated with poor health in humans, linked to conditions as varied as arthritis, heart disease, and different cancers. Nobody, though, had a clear and concise explanation for these associations. I figured it was mostly our modern livestock production system (antibiotics, chemical-laced foods, inhumane conditions, etc.) that was to blame, but it turns out that humans evolved a unique biological difference from other mammals... and it leaves those other mammals noxious to us as food sources.

Most other mammals (including other apes) produce a kind of sugar whose long name is N-Glycolylneuraminic acid and whose shortened name is Neu5Gc. This simple sugar ends up in their meat and their milk. Humans, however, are incapable of producing this molecule. It is thought that we evolved this deficit because it made us immune to a form of malaria while other mammals are still susceptible to infection. Neu5Gc is a natural substance and non-cancerous in itself, but it is now foreign to us. When we eat this food, our immune systems develop an antibody response to it. That antibody reaction then produces inflammation, and the chronic inflammation from daily exposure leads to cancers and other ills.

Researchers created mice with the same Neu5Gc deficiency that humans have, then they fed them with Neu5Gc.

When such mice were challenged with anti-Neu5Gc antibodies, they developed evidence of systemic inflammation. Long-term exposure to this combination resulted in a significantly higher incidence of carcinomas (five-fold increase) and an association with Neu5Gc accumulation in the tumors. Similar mechanisms may contribute to the association of red meat consumption with other diseases, such as atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes, which are also exacerbated by inflammation.
- http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/12/25/1417508112.abstract

Chronic exposure with antibodies caused tumor development, and those tumors were rich in Neu5Gc deposits even though the mouse cells could not produce the substance. It appears that they discovered the "smoking gun" that explains why red meat is bad for human health. I look forward to the human trials that can conclusively show the same link.

I've been semi-vegetarian for many years already. I have many meatless days by happenstance. I did not choose this lifestyle for humanitarian concerns. I am the only person responsible for my food, and I simply don't trust myself to store and cook meat properly for safe consumption. Instead, I eat meat when I go out to restaurants. It's not clear at this point what amount of Neu5Gc exposure is safe (unlikely to trigger antibodies), if any at all.

Like the Whos down in Whoville, maybe it's time that we switched to a healthy (but humane) roast beast?

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village dogs

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:03:45 GMT

No modern human population lacks dogs in its culture. Our long, intertwined history leads to the co-evolution theory that humans and canines evolved together through mutual dependence.

Sure, humans have domesticated lots of animals, but those are typically done as shepherds. The animals feed themselves, or we collect their natural food for them. We use them as tools and eventually as meat. In the case of dogs, however, their bodies evolved with ours to adapt to new sources of food as we developed agriculture. Basically, we had good garbage that was rich in starch, and they scavenged our scraps.

We shouldn't take credit for the process, though. It's not that we were controlling their mating behavior to select our own choice of breeds; it's the wolves who adapted to us. Independent of humans, canines are quite versatile with their social bonding. After all, we aren't the only primates who integrate canines as tools in their society. Watch these baboons do it too... by force.

Nevertheless, the idea of humans and dogs evolving in mutual symbiosis is an interesting idea. It leads to questions about the genetic lineage of "village dogs", a term that refers to integrated canines who still mate by their own choice. One idea is that our mutual benefit is so strong, that adaptation may have happened independently many times. UCLA Today quotes Mark Derr:

"Wherever there are wolves and humans, you end up with dogs.”

I donated $100 to this crowdfunding project that is sampling village dog DNA from areas throughout Africa. They barely achieved their fundraising goal, but at least they made it. They're hoping to find genes favored by natural selection (rather than human-directed artificial selection) in canines. Those genes might help us better understand our own health. They sent me this photo as a souvenir of their travel in Africa. Notice how their appearance favors a tan-and-white coat and a longer, pointed snout than we typically see in cultivated breeds. (Click to see the photo in much larger version.)

All that fascinating history, and I haven't even scratched the surface of "interesting" with the abandoned dogs of Moscow who are evolving into 4 distinct groups: guard dogs, scavengers, wild dogs, and beggars. The beggars who specialize in brains rather than brawn have developed enough intelligence to master riding the subway on their own.

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emotions are old, and I told you so

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:29:07 GMT

I've been talking for nearly a decade about how some autistics live with an older form of emotional brain that has been awakened from slumber for another "test drive" of suitability in this test lab that is our global industrial civilization.

I count some emotions as just another kind of sensory experience. Sensations require an effort to establish a link between the perception and the actual cause in the external world. It's not easy to establish these links. Cringing is useful because the action takes you away from the source of harm without any need to understand the source. Anger and fear, however, require understanding the source, otherwise actions are taken "wildly" that often fling harm in all directions equally. Connecting internal sensation with the external world is very important.

Today is the first day I've seen some rather specific evidence in favor of this subjective experience as a complicated process. Scientific American published "Decoding the Body Watcher", an article that explains a few key points that echo my own assertions:

"While the prefrontal cortex may indeed be specialized for attending to external information, older and more buried parts of the brain including the “insula” and “posterior cingulate cortex” appear to be specialized in observing our internal landscape."
"Contrary to the conventional assumption that all attention relies upon the frontal lobe of the brain, the researchers found that this was true of only exteroceptive attention; interoceptive attention used evolutionarily older parts of the brain more associated with sensation and integration of physical experience."
"By recruiting “limbic-bridge” areas like the insula and posterior cingulate, a person using interoceptive attention may bypass the pre-frontal neocortex, directly tapping into bodily awareness that is free from social judgment or conceptual self-evaluation."

So when autistics like me self-report that some physical (and some emotional) sensations overwhelm our sense of self with their intensity, now there may be a good and objective reason to accept our account. There are a host of articles that link these same two brain regions with autistic minds.

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second brain

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:58:14 GMT

I learned today that humans (perhaps all vertebrates) have a second brain in their body. It's diffuse, primitive, and limited to concerns of the gut, but it's definitely there. It's called the "enteric nervous system". It forms from the same early cells as the brain, it has more neurons than the spinal cord, and it can work independently.

"This is indeed the picture seen by developmental biologists. A clump of tissue called the neural crest forms early in embryogenesis, Dr. Gershon said. One section turns into the central nervous system. Another piece migrates to become the enteric nervous system. Only later are the two nervous systems connected via a cable called the vagus nerve."
- http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/23/science/complex-and-hidden-brain-in-gut-makes-stomachaches-and-butterflies.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

So it is literally a fragment of brain material that matures into a separate integration center, where it receiving incoming signals and reacts by directing appropriate responses. It's the area responsible for "stomach butterflies" during emotional stress. It is associated through neurotransmitters to our emotional state, and it may play a large part in emotional responses.

"The enteric nervous system uses more than 30 neurotransmitters, just like the brain, and in fact 95 percent of the body's serotonin is found in the bowels. Because antidepressant medications called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) increase serotonin levels, it's little wonder that meds meant to cause chemical changes in the mind often provoke GI issues as a side effect. Irritable bowel syndrome—which afflicts more than two million Americans—also arises in part from too much serotonin in our entrails, and could perhaps be regarded as a "mental illness" of the second brain."
- http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=gut-second-brain

I've been talking for years about emotion as a primary sensory issue for autistics (overwhelmed by bloodstream "emotional chemicals").

"I have argued previously that I think some emotions are actually sensations. I suspect that there are cells in the brain that "sense" chemicals in the blood and produce a perception of emotion the same way that we have cells that "sense" chemicals in the air we breathe and then produce a perception of odor."
- Terry Walker, 2005 February 06, ANI-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU, Autism Network International Listserv

This new information fits very well with my personal observations. It might eventually lead to hard evidence explaining why so many autistics use diet as a means of symptom and behavior control.

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the rats of NIMH

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 14:26:51 GMT

I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere yet, but researchers have boosted the "intelligence" of mice by increasing the growth of their hippocampus. These engineered mice made better choices by improving their discrimination between similar situations, in effect "learning" more effectively.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/37288/?p1=MstRcnt&a=f

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