autism and the epigenome

[cynicalinnocent]

First- I've considerably less expertise on this subject than I'm going to attempt to portray. My theory here is that the current boom of aspbergers on the baby market is an epigenetic reaction to the overstimulation of the information age. From what I have gathered, the environmental conditions one's forebearers experienced can determine which genes will be expressed further down the timeline. A previous period of famine might encourage a generation of people that produce fat more readily as long term energy storage or what have you. So perhaps the comparitive level of stimuli in these last few generations has the species scrambling to keep up however it can. Instead of a standard hierarchical model of perception that seems to break down all too readily under these external stressors, maybe the epigenomic architect is trying to build a wider structure to take it all in. The idea being that autism is sort of simialar to a person watching 100 channels at once, but unable to prioritize between the 1 showing a burning building and another showing carpet fibres. So I'm looking for responses to the possibility that the current prevalence of autism is a maladaptive mutation by the epigenome's search for a better coping mechanism. I have other potentially more offensive theoretical constructs along these lines that I may post in the future, so if anyone has hard data that can completely disprove this idea, please share it before I embarass myself again.

 

Oh, that's utterly brilliant! Please feel free to share in the future! Is there somewhere I could send donations to further your research? I look forward to a thread telling me where I can send all my money to make your life free of worldly cares!

[DevilSolution]

Id be interested to hear the rest, though i doubt what you suggest is true due to pure probability and more variables than you have accounted for, its still an interesting read =D

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

What you describe sounds more like ADD than autism. Why would this epigenetic adaptation lead to autism rather than any other possible developmental disorder?

 

Similarly, many autistic people were born before the information boom. The autism prevalence is likely just as high among adults as among children:

 

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/05/autism-epidemic-more-likely-were-just-better-at-diagnosis.ars

 

Those adults were born decades before the Internet brought the information overload.

[Genecks]

@#%$, and that's the talk at a symposium that I decided to ditch on Friday before deciding to go home for the weekend because the semester ended.

 

Irony.

 

lol, ok...

 

I'd love having some more money, but I don't focus on aspberger's at the moment.

 

In relation to you post, there might be some validity to consider that continual information intake and processing through multimedia outlets, such as the Internet, have been constructing a varied behavior that people have not seen in the past. With television, the act was passive. With the Internet, the act of intaking information and processing it can be more interactive, thus more active. Mainpoint: The human brain is undergoing never-before-seen plastic changes to large information intake and processing acts.

 

So, what you're seeing are further cognitive changes (I suspect) with the Internet medium than the television medium.

 

However, I don't think these changes are enough to lead to an complete epigenetic lineage change for future generations. Remember, things have to affect the gametes. And the gametes are often well-separated from the brain. So, I don't think these modern-day cognitive changes that are occurring to people are bringing forth autism. Perhaps the plastic changes that are coming forth through constant interaction with the Internet are providing people with autistic-like attributes, though.

 

Here is something that might be of interest: http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/medmicro/staff/lasalle.html

Edited May 10, 2011 by Genecks

[J2014]

This review does suggest epigentics may play a role in autism, however I have never seen any evidence to suggest the epigenetic changes were induced by "overstimulation of the information age".

Schanen NC. 2006 Epigenetics of autism spectrum disorders. Hum Mol Genet. 2006 Oct 15;15 Spec No 2:R138-50 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16987877?dopt=Abstract

[Stefan-CoA]

Keep in mind the diagnostics are continuously increasing as are the number of people with access to a suited physician/psychologist. So what we may be observing is rather an increase in the recognition of the autism spectrum disorders rather than an actual increase in the prevalence of these disorders. Whereas 10 years ago the kid may have "been a little strange" these days its got Autism, ADHD or whatnot.