How come that a child of two non autistic people may have autism?

[Otto Kretschmer]

What's the genetic mechanism behind this? It happens quite often. 

One mechanism is de novo mutations. Anything else?

Edited February 5 by Otto Kretschmer

[Phi for All]

7 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

What's the genetic mechanism behind this? It happens quite often. 

It happens less often than two tall people having a short child. Autism is 50-80% heritable, height is about 80%. It helps to take the perspective that autism isn't a disorder (like being tall). I know that's not the current thinking, but the behavior I've observed is more divergent than abnormal.

[TheVat]

I worked with autistic people for a while and there was research implicating several genes that contributed to idiopathic autism by means of interacting with brain metabolism.

Some of the candidate genes of idiopathic autism (90-95% of all cases) related to brain metabolism are AVPR1a, DISC1, DYX1C1, ITGB3, SLC6A4, RELN, RPL10 and SHANK3.  

As  @Phi for All  notes, there is a high functioning end of the autism spectrum, often referred to as Asperger's (many argue that "syndrome" should be dropped), where it can be fairly argued that this is a different cognitive style rather than a disorder.   And that part of the spectrum may be less influenced by genotypic factors.

Edited February 5 by TheVat
pytogrphiic rerror

[StringJunky]

24 minutes ago, TheVat said:

As  @Phi for All  notes, there is a high functioning end of the autism spectrum, often referred to as Asperger's (many argue that "syndrome" should be dropped), where it can be fairly argued that this is a different cognitive style rather than a disorder.   And that part of the spectrum may be less influenced by genotypic factors.

Mark Zuckerberg is one. Look at the damage his efforts appear to be causing socially on a global scale. He controls Facebook.

Edited February 5 by StringJunky

[Phi for All]

44 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Mark Zuckerberg is one. Look at the damage his efforts appear to be causing socially on a global scale. He controls Facebook.

Do you place the blame for Facebook on Zuckerberg's neurodivergence? I've seen other CEOs trying to downplay the gravity of their mistakes, so why is Z different?

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

As  @Phi for All  notes, there is a high functioning end of the autism spectrum, often referred to as Asperger's (many argue that "syndrome" should be dropped), where it can be fairly argued that this is a different cognitive style rather than a disorder.   And that part of the spectrum may be less influenced by genotypic factors.

I also try to keep in mind that "normal" is decided by those who think they're normal, and also that our modern society (in the US at least) is ANYTHING but normal. There are so many mixed messages, hypocritical processes, laws that sound good but are horrible, so much deceit and lying, so many absolutely STUPID behaviors that people willingly embrace, and so much ennui in the same bodies as all our passions that it's a wonder more of us aren't diagnosed with a disorder.

What if autism is an evolutionary attempt to save us from the dangers of being "typical"?

[StringJunky]

7 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

Do you place the blame for Facebook on Zuckerberg's neurodivergence? I've seen other CEOs trying to downplay the gravity of their mistakes, so why is Z different?

A few things I've read about him over the years and his presentation suggests to me he probably has less than normal insight into other peoples thinking; empathy deficit. This guy's running a social media company, so it matters.

[Phi for All]

Just now, StringJunky said:

A few things I've read about him over the years and his presentation suggests to me he probably has less than normal insight into other peoples thinking; empathy deficit. This guy's running a social media company, so it matters.

"Empathy deficit" describes most of the big time CEOs I've ever heard of. Personally, I think the whole corporate structure is modeled after the same hierarchy the Abrahamic religions are modeled after. The CEO is God, and everyone else is below them. "Just good business" is synonymous with "empathy deficit". You aren't supposed to take people's feelings into consideration in business, even when it's a social media company.

Can you name any other social media companies where the CEOs are empathetic and care about people's thinking more than profit? 

[iNow]

8 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

The CEO is God, and everyone else is below them.

It’s more militaristic with a very clear top-down control mechanism, lots of underlings fighting and back biting, jockeying for position, clawing to get ahead etc. 

While we agree on the thrust of your point, will just point out that even the CEO must follow the whims and wishes of their Board of Directors, and they would further pass the buck by arguing they’re following the demands of shareholders. 

But the CEO is certainly the face of all that and again certainly nobody below them can refuse to follow their orders without risk of dismissal. 

23 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

he probably has less than normal insight into other peoples thinking

It’s a bit like being deaf to a very specific note, but still hearing the rest of the music. 

[StringJunky]

44 minutes ago, iNow said:

It’s a bit like being deaf to a very specific note, but still hearing the rest of the music. 

Spot on.

58 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

"Empathy deficit" describes most of the big time CEOs I've ever heard of. Personally, I think the whole corporate structure is modeled after the same hierarchy the Abrahamic religions are modeled after. The CEO is God, and everyone else is below them. "Just good business" is synonymous with "empathy deficit". You aren't supposed to take people's feelings into consideration in business, even when it's a social media company.

Can you name any other social media companies where the CEOs are empathetic and care about people's thinking more than profit? 

I  don't get the same sense of dissonance with others, that I can think of, as I do with him. I'll have to try to find out how many people have been harmed on the various platforms as a result of their interactions on them. As iNow puts it, if he can't hear the cries of customers, he shouldn't be doing the job, just as I can't be expected to be an air traffic controller or hifi sound engineer; being deaf. I don't think he has the personal insight to recognize that. One of the GOP senators actually said to his face he has blood on his hands... which he evidently does have.

Edited February 5 by StringJunky

[TheVat]

3 hours ago, Phi for All said:

 

I also try to keep in mind that "normal" is decided by those who think they're normal, and also that our modern society (in the US at least) is ANYTHING but normal. There are so many mixed messages, hypocritical processes, laws that sound good but are horrible, so much deceit and lying, so many absolutely STUPID behaviors that people willingly embrace, and so much ennui in the same bodies as all our passions that it's a wonder more of us aren't diagnosed with a disorder.

What if autism is an evolutionary attempt to save us from the dangers of being "typical"?

Yes, groups of humans seem to fare better when a normative filter is applied to actions rather than people, e.g. look Zog, we normally don't defecate near the watering hole.  And a high functioning autistic might be the one who, due to social awkwardness, focuses intently on optimizing the atlatl or bow fourteen hours a day and saves their HG band from starving.  Neurodivergence has probably been a part of our species survival for a long time.  

[Sensei]

7 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

What's the genetic mechanism behind this? [..]

One mechanism is de novo mutations. Anything else?

Search net for "recessive genes activation"

https://www.google.com/search?q=recessive+genes+activation

 

The ancestors of man had a tail. It was not needed, so it degraded. But from time to time someone can have it again, and it's perfectly natural, because those genes are still there.

 

Some genetic disorders occur every two generations, from grandparent to grandchild, the son or daughter is "left out" and is only a carrier.

 

Gattaca, a 1997 film, tells the story of a society of the future that checks its genes before marriage to see if there will be a genetic disorder between them, and this is a major factor in deciding whether to marry someone.

 

Scirrhous sclerosis is not a necessary "sentence" for your family, provided that you conceive all your offspring "with caution," i.e., for several generations the in-vitro method will be used, with verification of whether the embryo inherits the genetic disease or not (one parent a carrier and the other "clean", two carriers is doomed).

After several generations of such "suffering," the genes that code for genetic disease will disappear, and it will be possible to revert to natural methods of reproduction.

 

This is a method that does not require manipulation of genes.

GMO of your genes or the genes of your offspring to fix inherited genetic disorders is another story..

 

7 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

It happens quite often. 

..not really..

 

Edited February 5 by Sensei

[swansont]

5 hours ago, StringJunky said:

A few things I've read about him over the years and his presentation suggests to me he probably has less than normal insight into other peoples thinking; empathy deficit. This guy's running a social media company, so it matters.

An empathy deficit could be from being a sociopath, though. It’s tough trying to diagnose people outside of a clinical setting. 

5 hours ago, Phi for All said:

"Empathy deficit" describes most of the big time CEOs I've ever heard of.

Yup.

[StringJunky]

I;m not the only one. From an Aspie:

Quote

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s staff member has stated in the past that Zuckerberg has a “touch of the Asperger’s,” and that he has “zero empathy.” He was talking about the disorder known as Asperger’s Syndrome, and Zuckerberg’s affliction could be contributing to Facebook’s privacy problem. The social network has been under fire in recent days over privacy concerns; specifically over the newest incarnation of its privacy policy, which allows Facebook to use people’s photos, names and other personal information for advertising, with no compensation to the person whose likeness is being used.

Could Mark Zuckerberg’s Asperger’s Syndrome be a contributing factor in his lack of concern for his customers’ privacy? In an online guide entitled “Coping: A Survival Guide for People with Asperger’s Syndrome,” late author Marc Segar, who himself had Asperger’s, lays out some of the most significant problems those with Asperger’s face, and one of those problems, according to him, is poor listening skills.

“To join in a conversation you need to listen to it,” Segar says in his guide. “Listening can be extremely difficult, especially if you have to keep your ears open 24 hours a day, but you can get better with practice. The most important thing to listen to is the plot of the conversation.”

This difficulty in listening may be a driving factor behind the fact that Mark Zuckerberg does not seem to listen to, nor to care about, people’s privacy concerns. Thousands if not millions of Facebook users have weighed in on the issue, asking him to be more mindful of their privacy, and instead of listening, he continually loosens his privacy policy. Now, he basically owns our images and names, and can use them for advertising for his own financial gain.

In another section of the guide, Segar states “To assess a social situation, one needs to pick up on as many clues as possible and swiftly piece them together. The final deduction is often greater than the sum of its parts. Also, a difficult thing for an autistic person is ‘finding a balance’ and this may show its self at all levels of behavior and reasoning. The ability to adapt to the ‘situation continuum’ and conform to the surrounding world is however an extremely ancient survival strategy which is most relevant in the social sector of life.”

This behavior, which manifests itself in not being able to pick up on social clues, could also be a factor in Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to take his customers’ concerns seriously. Even when the information is not being delivered by subtle clues but rather by very clearly stated desires; Zuckerberg seems to be totally oblivious. https://guardianlv.com/2013/09/facebook-founder-zuckerbergs-aspergers-problem/

This could have portended the future:

Quote

Early after the website was launched, he mocked the 4,000 students who had joined Facebook, bragging to friends in text messages about the vast amount of personal information he had collected thanks to the misplaced trust of his users. Zuckerberg called them “dumb” and punctuated the word with profanity.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/1/why-did-mark-zuckerberg-apologise-at-the-us-senate#:~:text=Early after the website was,punctuated the word with profanity.

Does that inspire confidence that he has safety at the forefront of his mind?

Edited February 6 by StringJunky

[MigL]

4 hours ago, swansont said:

An empathy deficit could be from being a sociopath

That was the first thing that came to my mind also.
He's most likely a self-centered ass; nothing to do with slight autism.

[StringJunky]

59 minutes ago, MigL said:

That was the first thing that came to my mind also.
He's most likely a self-centered ass; nothing to do with slight autism.

OK. I was being kind.

[Otto Kretschmer]

BTW there are two kinds of empathy, emotional empathy and cognitive empathy.

Psychopaths lack emotional empathy but not cognitive empathy which means they're perfectly aware of other people's feelings, they just don't "feel" their pain.

Autistics are the other way around - they do feel the pain of others, they just don't have the capacity to read their feelings/thoughts.

It's a bit tricky to understand but those two disorders are essentially polar opposites of each other.

[MigL]

12 hours ago, StringJunky said:

OK. I was being kind.

I would think that applies to most, if not all, rich people.
Having 'fu*k-you' money tends to dissociate one from the rest of society.

[StringJunky]

22 minutes ago, MigL said:

I would think that applies to most, if not all, rich people.
Having 'fu*k-you' money tends to dissociate one from the rest of society.

I find it bemusing that insanely rich people think they understand the problems of the vast majority and think they can help, all the while, creating the conditions of poverty by draining the country's wealth away in some obscure overseas shell company.

[TheVat]

7 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

BTW there are two kinds of empathy, emotional empathy and cognitive empathy.

Psychopaths lack emotional empathy but not cognitive empathy which means they're perfectly aware of other people's feelings, they just don't "feel" their pain.

Autistics are the other way around - they do feel the pain of others, they just don't have the capacity to read their feelings/thoughts.

It's a bit tricky to understand but those two disorders are essentially polar opposites of each other.

I am reminded of "Hal" in 2001, who is saying things like You seem upset, Dave.  Perhaps you could take a stress pill and rest for a while.  Hal exhibits autistic traits, perceiving that Dave is upset but not really able to understand why Dave feels this way or how Hal is responsible for Dave's upset.  One issue that kept coming up, when I did some work with autistic persons, was that they would cause offense and have no grasp that they had done so.  This led to some clients being described by staff as "unfiltered."  They had no social filter on their words because they didn't understand how words landed on others.  For them, someone's reaction of upset or annoyance would seem to come out of nowhere - you had to sympathize with their bafflement.  With some personalities, this led to a different approach, which was to only speak on their hobbies or the weather - topics which were safe zones for them and they knew they wouldn't offend.  (though this strategy would backfire when the details of their hobby was boring to most people - if someone isn't into fly-fishing and you ramble on about it for 30 minutes, people will make excuses to end the conversation)  

 

[Outrider]

Autism is such a catch all term these days that the original question makes little sense.

Anecdotal I know but fwiw.

My son was diagnosed at eight years old. During the course of I realized I had a lot of the "symptoms "

But we are completely different. Hes very coordinated, still has trouble comprehending what he reads and is emotionally aloof. That last part does not stop him from doing things for people but if his help does not help he just dosen't feel it. Where it wrecks me.

I was reading 12th grade literature in the sixth grade but still cannot do a jumping jack to save my life.

My point is that I think autism is one of those things that is very undiagnosed and the term has become so broad that it's not really useful. 

[CharonY]

On 2/6/2024 at 11:09 AM, StringJunky said:

I find it bemusing that insanely rich people think they understand the problems of the vast majority and think they can help, all the while, creating the conditions of poverty by draining the country's wealth away in some obscure overseas shell company.

That is one of the reasons why I am extremely suspicious of the "tech will save us" narrative, especially if they are in the hands of select few individuals. They have all the answers, without even understanding the question.

19 hours ago, Outrider said:

Autism is such a catch all term these days that the original question makes little sense.

Anecdotal I know but fwiw.

My son was diagnosed at eight years old. During the course of I realized I had a lot of the "symptoms "

But we are completely different. Hes very coordinated, still has trouble comprehending what he reads and is emotionally aloof. That last part does not stop him from doing things for people but if his help does not help he just dosen't feel it. Where it wrecks me.

I was reading 12th grade literature in the sixth grade but still cannot do a jumping jack to save my life.

My point is that I think autism is one of those things that is very undiagnosed and the term has become so broad that it's not really useful. 

That is why the definition has shifted from specific diagnoses to a broader range of descriptive syndromes, from what I understand. So basically instead of having the categories associated with pervasive developmental disorder, as the conditions are called,  like autistic disorder, Aseperger's disorder and childhood disintegrative disorder (and maybe more)  it is now organized in a spectrum. This new categorization has decreased diagnoses, IIRC. But reading ability or body coordination are I believe not part of it- the focus is in persistent deficits in social communication and limited but repetitive patterns of behaviour, for example.

[TheVat]

(looks in, confused, wanders around opening and shutting doors and drawers, peering under furniture....)

Was there a thread on the heritability of autism here somewhere?  

 

(I have heard that the rich are quite tasty, if food supplies are running short)  

[MigL]

I guess most of us are way off to one side of the spectrum.
Don't autistics have a laser-like focus on the subject they are interested in ?

We all just wander and meander across all sorts of different subjects.
( Hey ! Did you see that squirrel that ran by ? )

[MigL]

38 minutes ago, iNow said:

“If you've met one individual with autism, you've met one individual with autism.”

Could you really not tell I was trying to set-up a joke about wandering attention ?

[iNow]

I saw your joke and also corrected your premise. Those aren’t mutually exclusive.