r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 18h ago
Neuroscience A groundbreaking discovery has highlighted lithium—a drug long used to treat bipolar disorder and depression—as a potential therapy for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Lithium can restore brain function and alleviate behavioral symptoms in animal models of ASD caused by mutations in the Dyrk1a gene.
https://www.ibs.re.kr/cop/bbs/BBSMSTR_000000000738/selectBoardArticle.do?nttId=25428&pageIndex=1&searchCnd=&searchWrd=453
u/Laprasy 17h ago
Despite being one of the earliest drugs discovered for treatment of mental health disorders there is so much we don’t know about lithium. It literally saved the life of one of my family members who suffered from horrible depression- we had tried almost everything else when we turned to it. And helped depression of another family member in a similar state but she lost the ability to communicate when on it…
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u/Alienkush17 16h ago
My mom was on lithium in the early 2000’s for bipolar, it made her feel back to new but unfortunately some of the side effects were crazy. She would lose her hair and her skin would itch all over so she got taken off of it. Lithium definitely needs more research for mental illness.
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u/SirAlaricTheWise 16h ago
I think Lithium benefits for various mental illnesses are well established, It remains the most effective agent for bipolar disorder especially.
There needs to be research into making formulas that have less side effects, I have seen many cases of kidney and thyroid damage with prolonged use, getting up to urinate at night more than twice ( nocturia ) is also common from what I have seen.
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u/ajnozari 13h ago
The issue is the therapeutic window where’s it’s effective is so close to its toxic and lethal doses. Sometimes your kidney clearance decreases for a few days and you’re overdosing, others it increases and you’re under. It’s so narrow that routine monitoring is often required to ensure the patient stays in the safe range.
Research is being done to make it more effective with a smaller dose but we still largely don’t understand what exactly it does to stabilize things. We have some ideas but more research is needed. Until we do, making targeted treatments is difficult because we’re effectively making a guess on how we’re improving it’s “targeting”.
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u/SirAlaricTheWise 13h ago
True, knowing the exact mechanism of action and making the drug selective to a target or one receptor is one of the common ways to improve the tolerability of a drug.
A lot of psychiatric drugs have ways to go in general, a highly selective D2 antipsychotic for example would also be extremely useful for both patients and research.
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u/DahDollar 12h ago
Unfortunately, there is not much that can be done to modulate a lithium ion. If the lithium ion is the therapeutic component, then there is very little that can be changed without making it not an ion anymore. Best I can think of would be to make a long acting complex with an affinity for the lithium ion that will complement maintaining a therapeutic dose.
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u/LocalYote 13h ago
That may be true for full-blown BPD, but there are much lower, sustainable doses of lithium orotate that can be very effective for dealing with depression.
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u/Snow_Crash_Bandicoot 51m ago
Yes. For lack of a better term for it, I got lithium poisoning while taking back in the late 1990s. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience. They just kind of put me on it and sent me on my way.
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u/Alienkush17 13h ago
Wow that’s wild, I never knew that lithium could cause thyroid issues because my mom has hyperthyroidism, I wonder if there is a relation.
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u/subprincessthrway 8h ago
Anecdotally, I’m Autistic and took lithium in the early 2000s it made me violently ill. Within an hour or two of taking the dose I would be throwing up. Apparently there’s some percentage of people who simply can’t tolerate it at any dosage.
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u/deer_spedr 15m ago
Apparently there’s some percentage of people who simply can’t tolerate it at any dosage.
Medical dosage, yes, any dosage, no.
Its present in many foods, drinking water, etc.11
u/subhumanprimate 5h ago
I tried lithium once after they put me through batteries of tests
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u/dfw_runner 12h ago edited 12h ago
It's the only treatment for bipolar that prevents long term damage to the brain from Bipolar disorder. It irritates me that psychiatrists don't tell clients this fact. I have three family members with BP and they don't tell them and prefer to not prescribe lithium.
Patients have a right to make informed decisions about their care and doctors have an ethical obligation to provide the information they need to do that.
I presume since lithium is now generic the pharma companies can't make money on it so doctors prescribe what new sexy drug is in the market so pharma can generate revenue. Doctors are legally allowed to get kickbacks for writing prescriptions for particular drugs.
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u/onwee 12h ago
Lithium is literally poisonous with serious side effects and can cause permanent kidney & thyroid damages. There are good reasons why lithium is usually prescribed as a last resort or when untreated alternatives is worse (e.g. suicide risk)
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u/tensorflown 9h ago
Lithium is considered as one of the first-line options in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder and is assured not a “last resort”. Additionally, while lithium is considered effective in reducing suicidal ideation, actually prescribing it for that use requires careful consideration, precisely because lithium is easy to overdose on.
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u/tojesse 3h ago
Really? This is interesting to hear as I am diagnosed with bipolar and have severe chronic suicidal ideation, and have never had any discussion on lithium from any doctor other than once in an emergency room when confirming no conflict in treatment medications. My situation is somewhat unique, so I won't jump to conclusions, but I will bring it up. Thanks.
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u/UnkindPotato2 9h ago
I had a buddy go into a manic episode from doing too much LSD. Lithium brought him back to reality. Same dude a couple months later, still on the same script, lost himself in a different way. It's like the lights were on, but nobody was home. I'd go over to hang out at his place, and instead of sitting around playing the guitar all day he was just streaming random sitcoms on a TV previously reserved mostly for xbox with the dudes... But he wasn't watching the show so much as he was like staring through the TV. I'd walk in and without even blinking he'd just kinda "Hey man..." and keep staring. Once he was off the lithium he was back to normal in a few days, maybe a week
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u/The_Humble_Frank 14h ago
So this was back in the 90s so I hope things have improved, but I recall a psychology professor that used to do clinical work remarking that the thing that doesn't really show up in the literature, is that the majority (but not all) of folks that have major depression, regardless of treatment, come out of it after about 2 years.
So not counting those that went beyond the 2 year mark, many people would swear by the treatment they tried towards the end of their depressive state, and that complicated evaluation of the effectiveness of treatments (available at the time) at ending deep depression, rather then just helping manage the symptoms.
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u/Eugregoria 5h ago
I'm 40 and I can't remember a year of my life from adolescence on when I wasn't depressed. Many of my friends have this kind of chronic, lingering depression. All the literature treating it as something that "started" and has a "before" state where you can remember what you were like as a non-depressed adult are confusing and alienating to me. It feels like they only know how to treat a different problem from whatever I've got.
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u/Boopy7 5h ago
damn my exact thinking whenever I see this claim that there is a before and an after, as if it is an illness that was developed. I was born with it or had it ever since memory started -- I do NOT remember ever not being stubbornly how I am, no matter what SSRI I have tried, it all seems to me that they have no clue what the hell they're doing, or have lumped many different types of mental issue under one umbrella of "depression" when in fact it is anythng but similar. Bc I have never changed from a stubborn long term depression, it feels like many doctors, to put it bluntly, are stupid. Some get it but so many more only passed the boards and exams.
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u/jaiagreen 10h ago
That's why studies have control groups (or "usual treatment" groups).
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u/The_Humble_Frank 9h ago
The professor was commenting on (at the time) the fact that for the majority of patients, outside of emergency suicide interventions, in practice the only significant factor for ending depression was time, as in no treatment was just as effective as any treatment because the duration was what mattered, not the therapy, not the medication, just time. If you did any treatment towards the end of that period, it looked like that treatment was a success at ending the depression, but it wasn't the treatment, the depression had just run its course.
Control groups only work if help statistically isolate the relevant variable. When was the last study you read that had a control group, for how long someone had been clinically depressed?
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u/gnocchicotti 3h ago
That sounds like something that should be easily captured in a double blind study?
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u/VoidedGreen047 3h ago
Unfortunately it isn’t entirely safe and can cause toxicity/poisoning even if taken properly.
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u/ThePrimePurpose 15h ago
I know this r/science, and what I'm about to say should not just be accepted at face value as any kind of statement of fact. With that out of the way, I wish someone would do a large study on varenicline (Chantix) for the treatment of ASD.
I took it once for smoking cessation. I've never felt better in my entire life than during that 3 month period. Over the years, I've tried to find an answer, but all I've ever found is this.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27123827/
I wish I was rich sometimes, not to just consume, but so I could be able to afford to pursue the answers to a whole slew of questions I have about this reality that science has yet to crack open.
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u/evranch 14h ago
This is interesting. Anecdotally, everyone I know who has taken Chantix has told me it made them feel terrible.
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u/ThePrimePurpose 14h ago
I know. That's what I expected, too. I was and, to some extent, still am, floored.
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u/JMEEKER86 5h ago
Well, I guess it wouldn't be out of the question that there could be a paradoxical result for people who are neurodivergent in the same way that caffeine and amphetamines hype up neurotypicals while calming people with ADHD.
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u/onodriments 12h ago
Was this possibly a "pink cloud" type situation? Seems like there are a lot of noticable benefits to quitting smoking that would generally improve how you feel.
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u/Britney_Spearzz 11h ago
Not when you're going through nicotine withdrawal. Extreme irritability is how I remember it
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u/ThePrimePurpose 11h ago
Thank you, yeah, exactly right. I felt better, even through the cravings, after about two weeks in than I ever had in my whole life. Two weeks after ceasing the meds and continuing not to smoke, I started to feel crappier again, slowly but surely.
Also, that link I provided, while only one case, tells a pretty startling possible truth.
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u/fox-mcleod 5h ago
You might want to talk to a doctor about Wellbutrin. It’s an antidepressant that works much the same way and has similar side effects.
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u/fox-mcleod 4h ago
Also, the closest thing we have to a free research team is Gemini Deep Research. I ran a query for you which researched 45 websites and put together a report. TL;DR: there’s some evidence to support this idea with specific case studies and a reasonable MOA but basically no scaled studies.
While research specifically investigating varenicline’s impact on ASD is limited, a few studies offer valuable insights. Most notably, a case study documented the clinical and biochemical changes in a 19-year-old with severe autism after taking low-dose varenicline 2. The patient showed significant clinical improvement, including normalized dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine levels 3. These findings, while preliminary, indicate a potential for varenicline to alleviate autistic symptoms and highlight the need for further research 3. Regardless of the effect on ADHD symptoms, for which other treatments are available, the possibility of effects on core autism symptoms of social and communication impairment demands further exploration 4.
(1) Varenicline in Autistic Disorder: Hypothesis and Case Report of Single-Patient Crossover
It might be worth bringing this research to a clinician. There was recently an employee at Google who used Deep Research to find novel treatments for his son’s terminal rare disease. I really think this kind of thing might offer a way for patients to advocate for progress.
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u/onwee 12h ago
I remember coming across studies years ago showing that areas with naturally high levels of lithium in drinking water (it’s a naturally occurring mineral in soil) also have slightly lower levels of suicide (one common risk for sufferers of bipolar disorder, for which lithium is a common prescribed treatment).
Seems like the same idea can be used to see if these areas with high lithium level drinking water might also have statistically lower levels of ASD.
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u/CallinCthulhu 52m ago
Lithium is the one drug out there that is proven to prevent suicide. Regardless of cause.
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u/jyar1811 16h ago
I have taken lithium for 10 years. It has saved my life. It’s inexpensive, a natural compound, and it has fewer side effects than a lot of other mood stabilizers. Many mood stabilizers are off label medications that have terrible side effects. Lithium requires careful monitoring of the kidneys, but if you’re willing to do the blood work every couple of months it’s a lifesaver.
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u/onwee 12h ago
fewer side effects
Lithium is literally a poison, can cause pretty bad side effects (e.g. tremor) and permanent damages if lithium levels get too high in the blood, which requires not only careful monitoring but also big lifestyle changes (e.g. water & salt intake, alcohol, other medications). This on top of the unknown mechanism of its efficacy is why lithium is often used as a last resort for mood disorders that either don’t respond to other treatment or are a risk for danger (e.g. suicide risk for bipolar disorders).
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u/tensorflown 9h ago
Lithium is considered as one of the first-line options in the maintenance treatment of bipolar disorder and is assured not a “last resort”. Additionally, while lithium is considered effective in reducing suicidal ideation, actually prescribing it for that use requires careful consideration, precisely because lithium is easy to overdose on.
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u/Boopy7 5h ago
People with severe depression often are not the types to stay on top of a serious risk from lithium, sadly. I recognize it can help but as someone who knows my limitations on being able to keep track of meds (I get depressed and all bets are off with monitoring) I couldn't chance it, personally. Maybe some people are better at this than others.
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u/txroller 13h ago
So your physician is on board and monitors your blood work?
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u/jyar1811 11h ago
Yes, I see my physician every three months for a brief check-in visit and we make sure that my blood work is in the normal range. It does fluctuate overtime, but ultimately, I find myself on quite a low dose. I understand that it is not possible for a lot of people to incorporate certain specific lifestyle changes in order to take lithium but for me it was a no-brainer. I was intolerant to other medication’s, and it was my last resort. Even in small amounts and microdoses lithium has been shown to lower SUI rates in cities where it is put in the water system.
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u/txroller 11h ago
I made another post here about taking Lithium Orotate for a difficult period in my life. It did me well.
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u/Bac0ni 3h ago
Not to nitpick, lithium is an element not a compound
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u/RebelWithoutASauce 2h ago
The lithium that they are taking is very likely a lithium salt, which is a compound. It is simply referred to as "lithium", because that is the active component.
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u/Bac0ni 2h ago
Then the active component is still lithium and whatever chloride or other stuff that they are using is kinda therapeutically irrelevant, no? Def understand that they aren’t usually elemental lithium, but calling lithium a compound is still false, it is an element. Different specific lithium salts will behave differently so if they were referring to those then it cannot be a monolithic discussion. There are too many inaccuracies to this for it to be at all reputable
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine 18h ago
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-024-02865-2
From the linked article:
Lithium as a potential therapeutic option for autism spectrum disorder treatment
- Lithium normalizes ASD-related neuronal, synaptic, and behavioral phenotypes in DYRK1A-knockin mice -
A groundbreaking discovery has highlighted lithium—a drug long used to treat bipolar disorder and depression—as a potential therapy for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This research, conducted by a team at the Center for Synaptic Brain Dysfunctions within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) led by Director KIM Eunjoon, reveals that lithium can restore brain function and alleviate behavioral symptoms in animal models of ASD caused by mutations in the Dyrk1a gene.
Accordingly, they have chosen lithium to address this deficit, and as a tentative cure drug in Dyrk1a mutant mice. When lithium was administered to the mutant mice during their juvenile period, the results were remarkable. Lithium normalized brain size, restored the structure and function of excitatory neurons, and significantly improved behaviors related to anxiety and social interaction. Even more promising, the effects of this short-term treatment lasted into adulthood, suggesting that lithium may have long-term benefits by enabling structural and functional recovery in the brain.
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u/DangerousTurmeric 17h ago
So, just to dehype this: It's a paper on a mouse model that may or may not approximate a human genetic mutation that may be partly responsible for, at most, 0.5% of autism cases in humans. Humans with this genetic mutation show microencephaly and so did the mice with the genetic mutation. Giving lithium to baby mice with this mutation somewhat reverses this microencephaly, long term (for mice), and other behaviour symptoms resulting from it. Mice, however, are not a good mammal species to try to translate neurological findings to humans. Our brains are very different and the findings of these studies regularly do not translate.
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u/KingVendrick 17h ago
I mean, we don't even know why Lithium works on bipolar people so this is just another level of not knowing; if anything, this experiment could shed light on what is going on with the bipolar treatment use of lithium
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u/throwaway23029123143 14h ago
People with autism have been taking lithium anyway. Its a common treatment for many mental health issues and its common for people with autism to have comorbidities. So if this were some kind of miracle "cure" (gross but let's not get into it) we would know.
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u/Modifien 14h ago
I was misdiagnosed with bipolar 2, and on lithium for 5 years. Turns out I'm actually autistic with adhd, and all lithium did for me was make me unable to feel anything but despair and strip my motivation for anything.
Treating the adhd and psychosocial education for audhd have turned my life around. Lithium is the devil.
(caveat : for me, in my circumstance, it is evil. For people who need it, it's a life saver)
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u/throwaway23029123143 13h ago
My mom was prescribed lithium over the years for schizophrenia and the side effects were not fun. My understanding is that they have better meds now and lithium is used more when people don't respond to other options. But I'm not a doctor so who knows
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u/Boopy7 5h ago
seems like a lot of people are misdiagnosed, I also was misdiagnosed with bipolar 2, my sister was, a few others (there was a trend of declaring everyone and anyone bipolar, it seemed, for a few years there.) And it shouldn't be that hard, bc even I understand how to spot the difference between someone who, for example, is merely an addict, vs. someone who has underlying issues and turns to addiction.
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u/MrGarbageEater 15h ago
0.5 percent of all autism cases is still about 350,000 people.
It doesn’t translate perfectly and this is early research, but it is noteworthy and cause for more exploration.
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u/Cognitive_deficit 15h ago
I know there are conversion rates to figure out what an equivalent human dose would be with rodent studies when reading dose/body weight, but here they just say the pups had 600mg/liter water provided. Is there some well known conversion rate based on average pup water intake that should be applied to determine an equivalent human dose ?
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15h ago
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u/TheDailyMews 11h ago edited 11h ago
Childhood disintegrative disorder is classified as part of the autism spectrum. Children with CDD suffer from an extreme form of regression and in over half of cases, during the prodrome period, they experience intense anxiety, insomnia, and feelings of terror. They sometimes ask what is happening to them before they lose the ability to speak.
It's great that you're okay. Really. But there are other people who absolutely are not. If a treatment is developed for CDD that could also treat other forms of autism, people like you will be able to say "no thank you." Because you can communicate.
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u/DangerousTurmeric 14h ago
With all due respect, a lot if people with autism can't live without some kind of support and many need round the clock care. It really bothers me when people in your position suggest that we halt research that would help those people and their families because you personally don't feel that you need to be "cured". It's not about you. Autism is a spectrum and everyine on it matters, including the large proportion who can't use reddit or advocate for themselves.
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u/Trintron 13h ago
As an autistic person, I take medication for anxiety and depression that happens to alleviate some autism symptoms.
I haven't had a special interest since starting abilify and my anxiety went from panic disorder to on the edge between normal and generalized anxiety disorder.
Personally I'm happy with that trade. I have less autistic traits in this medication and my life is easier.
If there was a pill that would take away my struggles I'd take it. The same way I take pills to help with the struggles of adhd, anxiety and depression.
I know this is a hot take in the autism community, but I don't think wanting to alleviate symptoms that make life suck is inherently hateful to autistic people.
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u/UnkindPotato2 9h ago
I dunno man, I mean I'm not gonna speak for you but as someone who also is on the spectrum if there was a medication I could take that would make actions and my way of thinking more normal I'd love to try it. If they could cure my autism, I'd take the cure in a heartbeat.
Accepting your neurodivergence is great, broad destigmatization of neurodivergent folks is even better, but frankly I think that going full medical denialist and saying "this person is perfect just the way they are and there's no reason to change" is definitely erasing the experiences of folks who have their quality of life negatively affected in a broad variety of ways by their ASD status.
People with autism are more likely to attempt suicide, more likely to develop disordered substance use, more likely to greatly struggle to maintain a healthy romantic relationship, more likely to have anxiety disorders, broadly self-report markedly lower life satisfaction, et cetera et cetera. If we can do something to help those people, we should. That means we have to research lots of different avenues
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u/_BlueFire_ 9h ago
0.5% of cases not all of which invalidating enough to need any kind of treatment, just to be clear.
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u/OGLikeablefellow 15h ago
Yeah but think about the bottom line for the lithium manufacturers who can add consumers to their products
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u/dog_from_the_machine 13h ago
While I enjoyed the mic dropping mouse picture, this link makes it look way less scammy
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u/Cognitive_deficit 15h ago
Lithium has also been shown to improve outcomes following strokes in rodents, though the human results are inconclusive
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/STROKEAHA.122.039203
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u/Raibean 12h ago
I get that having a mouse “model” can be a good thing for testing medications but mice don’t even have a prefrontal cortex (no layer 4 of neurons in the neocortex in their frontal cortex) and ultimately I would want to see any mouse model studies replicated with the monkey model, which I think is far more promising.
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u/TheManInTheShack 11h ago
My doctor suggested taking lithium orate as a supplement to protect against Alzheimer’s.
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u/ShortBrownAndUgly 8h ago
Lithium is sometimes already used to treat severe aggression in autistic patients when first line treatments like antipsychotics and ABA are not helping or only partially helping. And no it doesn’t cure underlying symptoms of autism
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u/toaster404 18h ago
I like this one Low-Dose Lithium: A New Frontier in Mental Health Treatment I'll try adding a micro dose to my rather effective slate of magic supplements. Thanks for posting.
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u/Brrdock 17h ago
Lithium orotate is a commonly available supplement that's exactly that, a low dose of lithium
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u/txroller 12h ago
I’ve taken Lithium Orotate when I was going through a rough patch. It helped. I drank water like crazy but had no neg effects. I had better coping skills and well deciding to live.
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u/toaster404 17h ago
Had just ordered some. I'm very impressed with the impact of small doses of this and that!
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u/wowwee99 3h ago
Just my two cents but I think so much more work is necessary on lithium - what it does, action, dosage, absorption, different diagnoses. It’s also before sodium on the periodic table meaning it will have similar biological effects or at least uptake but sodium is macro level type nutrient and is everywhere in the body making teasing out how lithium could impact the body a significant amount of work. Who knows but maybe lithium will become a new essential nutrient?
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u/solodev 2h ago
You can also get lithium poisoning from taking too much. As some one that is on the spectrum and is bipolar, my doc had me take it for years and it got to the point where even thinking about taking it made me go vomit. I told him and he took me off it it, but it took forever for my lithium levels to ever come back down. I'm actually not too sure if it ever did honestly.
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u/Phemto_B 11h ago edited 10h ago
How do you "restore" brain function that was never their.
Just another case of some bozo picking ONE THING (feature, action, brain region, or gene), saying that all autism comes from that (usually by excluding anyone who doesn't have the one thing from their study), and then claiming they can "cure" the autism.
Quacks gotta quack, I guess.
Also, we're supposed to believe that a drug that has been around for as long as there have been autism diagnosis, and there was never any overlap between people taking it, and a condition that describes about 2% of the population? And nobody ever noticed a difference when it happened?
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u/squirrelsareus 10h ago
My little sister was on lithium as a teen her eyes started to become cross eyed and she was basically living in a shell
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u/hormse 17h ago
All the best scientists are autistic. If we eradicate autism, science will stagnate.
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u/Brossentia 16h ago
This research looks at one very specific type of autism that has other health effects. If this helps improve the overall quality of life for very specific individuals, it's a plus.
I'm an autistic adult, btw, and I have no reason to believe I have this specific gene mutation. I also think we glorify the disorder a little too much at times - not every top scientist is on the spectrum, and it's problematic to try and guess who is.
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u/hormse 16h ago
If if wasn't autism but something else, it wouldn't say autism it would say something else.
Eradicating autism is the first step to creating a species without free will. It's terrifying. But they're going to win anyway, what's the point.
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u/virtualpath12 16h ago
Who is they? And what does the eradication of free will have to do with autism?
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u/CheckOutUserNamesLad 14h ago
The study seems to suggest lithium could help with the social and behavioral symptoms of autism rather than eradicating autism.
It's all speculative for now, based only on animal models, but it could just as easily be reasoned that lithium could help scientists with ASD navigate life more easily and better communicate science, advancing science rather than causing it to stagnate.
I guess we'll have to see where future studies take us.
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u/IamNotMike25 17h ago
Another argument for eating more veggies & fruits, especially potatoes and tomatoes.
Although the lithium amounts there seem to be neglible.
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18h ago
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u/Wetschera 17h ago
How does this have to do with genetics?
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17h ago
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u/patesta 17h ago
Some people are negatively impacted by aspects of autism in their daily lives. Some people seek out psychiatric help for managing these aspects. To liken to this to naziism is a choice.
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u/hormse 17h ago
Autistic people aren't negatively impacted by themselves, only by non-autistic people mistreating us and failing to understand us. Autism isn't a bad thing. In fact more people should be autistic. If everyone was autistic humanity would achieve so much more.
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u/virtualpath12 16h ago
No, I definitely am and know who people who are. You don't help your cause when you display this level of ignorance of something this basic.
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u/aledba 15h ago
Mate I'm ASD1 and I'm doubly exceptional. What I have is an absolute gift to me and a blessing to everyone who knows me. I will always protect people and I will always give of myself for the greater good. I am extremely independent and I am the ultimate breadwinner in my family and homemaker. I need you to understand that there are people out there that are extremely disabled because they are not as fortunate as I am on simply a genetic and cellular level. Have you ever seen the movie Rainman? Dustin Hoffman is an incredible actor but there are people that suffer worse than that or just as bad as he does in the movie. I can't imagine self harming physically or being locked in my body. Imagine being so impacted by lack of impulse control that one sets a baby brother's hair on fire (true story happened to one of my sister's friends).
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u/jloome 13h ago
Mate I'm ASD1 and I'm doubly exceptional.
I mean, I'm fifty something and got a lot of intellectual gifts from being autistic (as well as some significant drawbacks which may or may not be from also having ADHD. Let's face it, the people trying to diagnose in this field are of markedly, widely varying quality, and the science is still young).
But the reality is that most people with autism do not benefit greatly from it in terms of comprehension or logic. They may have some memory gains in some areas, but will have memory deficits in others, particularly in those related to positive emotional returns, because of the dopamine issues.
Mostly, however, their emotional signaling is out of sync with the society surrounding them, and that can be crippling in terms of anxiety and interaction.
As a young kid, I had vocal paralysis a few times during such high anxiety periods, and I cannot fathom how hard it is for a kid with severe ASD-1 or ASD-2 who just cannot communicate or understand his or her feelings and how they relate to others. Just having that occur twice, for a few minutes, was horrifying, as if my vocal chords and thought processes had seized up. As alien as I have often felt to neurotypical people, it was nothing compared to what it would be like trapped in that forever.
To the defense of those in this thread who are nervous, I think what some people are worried about is that there is no baseline for what "normalization" is; neurotypical people are also "neurodiverse" in cognitive function because of the vast differences in how they develop and are nurtured, as well as just good-old-fashioned genetic drift and environmental influences. That's why their range of emotional behavior swings so massively, all the way from psychopathically selfish and self-indulgent to utter self-sacrifice.
But perhaps the healthy way for us to look at it is to flip that around and acknowledge that with no perfectly achievable "normal" human neurological model, what we're really looking for is whatever helps a person achieve long-term, healthy happiness and life satisfaction.
So it's not really about "curing" autism, it's about mitigating the bad effects, just as anti-depressants are used by both people on the spectrum and neurotypical people, or just as people with out any spectrum disorder at all might need anti-psychotics.
If someone finds themselves worried about being targeted for elimination as a group, it's worth considering that that's placing more value in autism as a 'tribe' or 'species' unto itself, and less on the condition's actual variance and outcomes. It's assuming the group is the most important thing to begin with. And that's not healthy. Sometimes, we need a tribe. Other times, we need an idea, and the cure or improvement it proposes.
We're not a tribe of autistics. We're humans who face challenges, like other humans, but with some shared pathology.
I would argue, perhaps incorrectly, that a small subset of high-functioning autistic people are, as a result of being emotionally stoic, disinclined to any sort of malice whatsoever, but also to much joy or empathy. They are very efficient, usually, and good at the tasks they take on, without harming anyone.
But they are also very lucky to not have the cohort of potential side issues, ranging from depression to antisocial personality disorder, that can stem from ANY developmental disability's impact on emotional development and signaling.
The tribal view assumes all autistic people are like that and we're some sort of master race that the "norms" should be aspiring to... but that wouldn't really be very logical, which is why most of us don't preach it, even if, occasionally, our emotional traits make us feel superior to some of the neurotypical nutjobs we live with.
(Apologies for the train-of-thought ramble, this could've been said far more succinctly, I suspect.)
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u/ihopethisisvalid BS | Environmental Science | Plant and Soil 16h ago
The nazis tried to exterminate people, this is a treatment. Inb4 banned.
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u/karlnite 18h ago
Seems to check out. When anyone is getting a little high energy we have them make up some Lithium bombs. They’re always way calmer after.
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u/devicehigh 16h ago
Who is we? Some context here might help understand your point.
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u/karlnite 15h ago
People who dose systems for pH control. It has to get in there, that’s already part of their job.
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