Form: Quote Commentary

ASPIE-NESS

(biology)

“Some researchers have argued that ASDs are not primarily caused by genes, but also by environmental factors. The theory is that a person is born with a vulnerability to an ASD, but the ASD develops only if that person is exposed to a specific environmental trigger.”

Some suggested environmental triggers include:

1) the mother having a viral or bacterial infection during pregnancy.

There is evidence to support the first three factors listed above.

Women exposed to a rubella infection during pregnancy are estimated to have a 7% risk of giving birth to a child with an ASD.

(I had rubella and whooping cough before age 4.)

2) The mother smoking during pregnancy

Women who smoke daily throughout early pregnancy are 40% more likely to give birth to a child with an ASD.

(My mother smoked during pregnancy.)

3) The age of the father”

“New fathers who are older than 40 are estimated to be six times more likely to father a child with an ASD than fathers under 40. This is possibly because a man’s genetic material is more at risk of developing mutations as he gets older.”

(the behavior runs in my family, but my father was 25. All of my kids have the behavior too.)

( – from N.I.H.)

OTHERS

4) There is some relationship between gut bacteria and brain development that we don’t understand. Some of us seem to be deficient in it.

5) I am still suspicious of the salts of glutamate in western diets given that we know they’re neurotoxic.

OBSERVATION

6) It is absolutely CRIMINAL to put girls and boys in the same classrooms at the same age and expect the same behavior and it causes damage to male brain development.

REFERENCES

The article summary below can be translated and interpreted as: it takes a lot longer to develop a male brain, possibly because in-utero male development is achieved by delaying or impeding the development of amygdalar and hippocampal regions. Over the first few years of life this delta is seen in female early maturity and male later maturity. IN this sense, the construction of ‘male’, which is what ‘aspieness’ is an exaggeration of, is accomplished not by DIFFERENT structures, but by the emergent difference of a brain the develops at a different STAGE in development.

1) “Knowledge of amygdalar and hippocampal development as they pertain to sex differences and laterality would help to understand not only brain development but also the relationship between brain volume and brain functions. However, few studies investigated development of these two regions, especially during infancy. The purpose of this study was to examine typical volumetric trajectories of amygdala and hippocampus from infancy to early adulthood by predicting sexual dimorphism and laterality. We performed a cross-sectional morphometric MRI study of amygdalar and hippocampal growth from 1 month to 25 years old, using 109 healthy individuals. The findings indicated significant non-linear age-related volume changes, especially during the first few years of life, in both the amygdala and hippocampus regardless of sex. The peak ages of amygdalar and hippocampal volumes came at the timing of preadolescence (9–11 years old). The female amygdala reached its peak age about one year and a half earlier than the male amygdala did. In addition, its rate of growth change decreased earlier in the females. Furthermore, both females and males displayed rightward laterality in the hippocampus, but only the males in the amygdala. The robust growth of the amygdala and hippocampus during infancy highlight the importance of this period for neural and functional development. The sex differences and laterality during development of these two regions suggest that sex-related factors such as sex hormones and functional laterality might affect brain development.”