Vitamin Supplements

There is a male brain type and that this brain type is not about gender; rather, it is about the level of testosterone during fetal life. Baron Cohen, whose work on autism is highly respected, believes that one form of autism, Asperger’s syndrome, represents an extreme of the male brain type.

Asperger’s syndrome is often called high-functioning autism, because intelligence is not affected — in fact, it may be higher than normal. Indeed, some AS individuals may be supremely gifted, but they also have great difficulties with relationships and with empathy. Most of us can ‘read’ situations to varying degrees. We have an understanding of what or how someone else may be thinking and we are then able to adjust what we say or do accordingly, but those with Asperger’s have great difficulty in ‘reading’ other people. They are, in Baron Cohen’s words, ‘mind blind’. They also have a tendency to blurt out the truth — ‘you have a nasty big nose’ — because they cannot understand, as we do, that there are some things that you shouldn’t say. They are most comfortable when they are in control of their world and will seek to master every last detail of a ’system’ because this provides predictability. There are rules and laws which govern how a system behaves, unlike people whose behaviour is totally mystifying. In those professions where attention to detail is everything, people with Asperger’s can thrive. They flourish in professions like physics, engineering and maths, where their social skills are less important. Isaac Newton, Nobel prize-winning physicist Paul Dirac and Albert Einstein are all examples of supremely successful scientists who probably all had Asperger’s syndrome.

What’s interesting about AS is that there are ten males to every female with the condition. In tests of systemizing, men score better than women and those with autism score highest of all. On empathizing, women generally score better than men, while those with autism score worst of all. Of course, levels of testosterone in the womb do not explain all forms of autism, which is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a strong genetic component.

Eye contact is another thing that children with autism find difficult. Oxytocin is released when a mother looks at her baby and helps with bonding and developing maternal behaviour. It has been suggested recently that excess oxytocin (derived from synthetic oxytocin used during delivery to hasten labour) may somehow affect the baby’s normal oxytocin receptors, downregulating them and so contributing to the development of autism spectrum disorders. Certainly, oxytocin is crucial in social behaviour and attachment. Mice specially bred to have no oxytocin, despite normal development, seem to have trouble recognizing their family members, even though they have normal eyesight and smell. Nevertheless, the theory that synthetic oxytocin actually causes autism seems highly unlikely.

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Supremely Gifted Asperger’s Syndrome Autism

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