alt Hacker NewsDrug reverses autism-like brain changes in adult mice within hours
Comments
I have ASD Level 1, and I definitely don't want to be "cured." I feel like autism has basically given me significantly stronger reasoning, pattern recognition, and systemizing abilities in exchange for being socially a bit weird and awkward and eccentric. I recognize that this is the perspective of someone who is high-functioning but I strongly enjoy having autism.
Rapamycin - how strange. The Mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) gene/protein regulates cell growth in some not well understood way.
Maternal inflammation also aligns with autistic people being extra sensitive to negative feedback. Maybe if you are born in a world of disease you are supposed to be extra cautious of everything.
> The effects of rapamycin are temporary, and repeated dosing loses efficacy, making rapamycin, itself, an unlikely candidate as a broadly-used treatment.
This is interesting, it may be a type of thing I'd be curious about at some point. I don't think it's possible to undo the general way my brain is organized (badly), but I'd be curious to see if I'd get any benefit anyway.
(I seem to be a rare type of autistic, because while I can reliably find all three other major types, it has been very difficult for me to find more of my own :/)
so, like a vacine against autism, rather than the impossibility of it bieng caused by one? instantly?
[dead]
[dead]
Being autistic myself, I feel conflicted about trying to "cure autism"
Every day is challenging because I have to manage my energy, mask in social situations and at work, etc
On the other hand, I like who I am and I'm also very good at what I do because my brain is structured the way it is. I can imagine a society that is structured in a way, where I don't need the accommodations I'm currently dependent on
If the negative impacts I'm experiencing are a consequence of the how we've structured our society, then I don't think it's autistic people who need to change to fit in
Of course there are much more severe cases than me where autistic people need much more support and have severe learning disabilities, where it could be a huge improvement to quality of life
If it was possible to fully trust that a hypothetical "cure" would only be used in these severe cases, I might be excited about a potential breakthrough, but historically this unfortunately haven't been the case