A question for the neuroscience geeks ( Read more... )

I maintain the best science fiction these days isn't fiction.

What happens when a treatment for autism abruptly works.

Turns out, being neurotypical isn't quite the unqualified good the neurotypical represent it to autistic people to be.

Oh, ah, PS: there's apparently an apparently effective treatment for autism in trials now.

This post has moved to https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1227326.html

Via marginalrevtion:

In The Advantages of Dyslexia at Scientific American, Matthew H. Schneps reports that studies suggest that people with dyslexia show greater sensitivity to causal incongruity, and perhaps other categorical incongruities, too: The trick that makes Escher’s drawings intriguing is a geometric construction psychologists refer to as an “ ( Read more... )

Well, an amputee. I had never before heard of this phenomenon. The author's arm was amputated in February: Doctors don’t really know how to treat pain in a part of the body that no longer exists. I’m taking a fairly heavy dose of Neurontin, which is also used to treat epilepsy, restless-leg syndrome, and insomnia. I’m not supposed to stop taking ( Read more... )

Not sure where I got this (conuly?). Genes and culture: OXTR gene influences social behaviour differently in Americans and Koreans: Heejung Kim from the University of California [...] looked at a specific version of the OXTR gene, whose carriers are allegedly more social and sensitive. But this link between gene and behaviour depends on culture; it ( Read more... )

Teicher, M. H., et al. (2010). "Hurtful words: association of exposure to peer posterior corona radiata (PCR) in which there were correlations between verbal abuse with elevated psychiatric symptom scores and corpus callosum degree of exposure to peer verbal abuse and mean diffusivity (MD), radial abnormalities." Am J Psychiatry 167(12): 1464-1471 ( Read more... )

An engineer working for Proteus Biomedical decided to do an experiment with placebo pills on herself. She took a Sharpie(tm) pen to a blister pack of remote sensing placebos(!) and labeled them variously "Focus", "Willpower/Energy", "Calm", and "Happy". She then used her employer's biometric tracking gear to find out how effective they were ( Read more... )

I.

They're right.Or at least, Group Selection is right. I've been reasonably certain Kin Selection was mathematically ludicrous since I learned about it at age 15, and it didn't add up then, but I figured actual scientists must have looked into it and I would hold my opinion until I had a chance to hear what they said. I got a little distracted ( Read more... )

I was looking for something else and just found this in Sept 1, 2010 Biological Psychiatry: Methylation Matters: Interaction Between Methylation Density and Serotonin Transporter Genotype Predicts Unresolved Loss or Trauma by M.H. van IJzendoorn (sic) et al. Background ( Read more... )