Autism and Phenotypic Plasticity

Recent research has underscored the large environmental influences in autism. These studies have reconfirmed that autism is not only driven by genetics but can be strongly associated with particular environmental situations. I have long had a hunch that autism may be linked with specific environmental cues that are predictive of the quality of the social environment that the fetus can expect to be born into. Research in the field of phenotypic plasticity and epigenetics has shown that many organisms, from plants to flies to people demonstrate predictive adaptive responses to particular environmental stressors. Environmental cues encountered early in life are used by the developing organism to fine-tune its body type, above and beyond what its genes have in store for it.

My intuition tells me that many social mammals may be receptive to certain foreboding environmental cues that give them information about the social environment that they can expect after birth. It is already known that rats and humans respond in a similar way to cues about stress. Researchers like Michael Meaney at McGill University have documented that stress responsiveness can be largely programmed in young rats. The frequency of early cues indicative of maternal care (such as the extent of early maternal stress, arched back nursing, licking and grooming) modulate the expression of genes that regulate behavioral and neuroendocrine responses to stressors. In other words, the bodies of young mammals genetically modify themselves to ensure that they are better prepared for a threatening environment.

I imagine that there may be similar cues that hold predictive value about the social environment. These have not been found, but this is probably because they have never been looked for. Or have they? It is known that maternal stress, serotonin levels, multiparity and others are risk factors for autism. Could these factors, or some facet of them, offer information to the fetus about the social environment? Are there other cues that the fetus could intercept and respond to that indicate how valuable social cognition has proven to be to their parents?

Take a look at the section on "autism and epigenetic programming" in my article on autism at:  http://www.solitaryforager.com/.

Mental Disorders at the Office

I have suspected for a long time that almost every one of the characters in NBC’s TV series “The Office” has a psychological disorder - even if it is a slightly subclinical one. Each character has a flaw that causes them to consistently make the same types of misconstruals, misapprehensions or misjudgements.  Often these mistakes lead the characters to commit serious social or occupational blunders making my favourite show on television a madhouse confined within the four walls of second story, Scranton, Pennsylvania office space.  In my Mom's opinion, the writers either intentionally modelled their characters after common psychiatric or psychological disorders or else at least a few of them have an uncanny sense of how and where everyday people can go wrong. What follows is a list of the characters and the psychological disorders that I think they are supposed to represent.

Few of the characters deserve a full blown diagnosis, rather most have tendencies or habits that are characteristic of a specific disorder. Further, some of the characters' patterns of behavior don’t map onto a true disorder but to a personality trait. A person usually only receives a diagnosis if their disorder consistently and adversely affects their well-being, their social life, their economic status or the people around them. On these criteria, you be the judge. Characters are listed in an order that reflects the severity of their disorder, with the first being the most severe. Most of the descriptors below are symptom criteria coming straight out of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

Michael Scott:
ADD: Inattentive, impulsive, inattention to detail, careless mistakes, does not follow through, difficulty organizing tasks and activities, forgetful, easily distracted by extraneous stimuli

Dwight Schrute:
Aspergers Syndrome: Impaired social and emotional interaction, impaired empathy and sympathy, forced to compensate for deficit of empathy by memorizing social patterns, idiosyncratic communication, make-believe inappropriate to developmental level, intense asocial preoccupations, obsessed with details that have no social consequences, other symptoms of autism

Creed Bratton:
Schizophrenia or Schizotypy: Disturbance of consciousness, poor clarity of awareness of the environment, reduced ability to sustain or shift attention, disorientation, memory impairment, frequent derailment of thought, incoherent, odd, eccentric or peculiar,

Angela Martin:
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: recurrent and persistent thoughts about maintaining structure and order despite anxiety and stress that they may cause, preoccupied with lists, details and organization, feels driven to behaviors that are subject to rigid rules, overconscientious, scrupulous and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics or values. Hyperfrontality: habits pertaining to hygiene or social conventions are clearly excessive

Ryan Howard:
Narcissism: grandiose sense of self and inflated ego, arrogant and egoistic, is interpersonally exploitative and opportunistic, takes advantage of others, exaggerates achievements and talents, preoccupied with fantasies of success and power, has a sense of entitlement, lacks empathy

Erin Hannon:
Avoidant: avoids interpersonal activities that involve social contact in an effort to avoid criticism, disapproval or rejection, unwilling to become involved unless certain of being liked, shows restraint within intimate relationships for fear of shame, ridicule, inadequacy or embarrassment

Kevin Malone:
Mental Retardation: Does not meet the standards of his age group for pragmatics, communication, or self direction.

Kelly Kapoor:
Dependent Personality Disorder: pervasive and excessive fear of separation leading to clinging behavior, necessitates advice and reassurance from others, false veil of openness, extraversion and sociability.

Mr. Mifflin:
Alzheimer’s Disease: Significant memory impairment and advanced cognitive deficit, forgetfulness, disorientation

Toby Flenderson:
Depression: depressed mood throughout the day, feels sad or empty, low self esteem, feelings of hopelessness or melancholy, diminished interest or pleasure in most activities

Meredith Palmer:
Alcohol Dependence, Substance Abuse, Addictive Personality, Hyperactive Sexual Desire

Jan Levinson:
Neurotic: Impelled by distressed, anxious or angry energy

Stanley Hudson:
Antisocial / Psychoticism: failure to be apprehensive of aggressive acts, irritability, lack of remorse, indifference

Andy Bernard:
Intermittent Explosive Disorder: several episodes of failure to resist aggressive impulses that result in harm or destruction of property. Degree of aggressiveness is out of proportion to the precipitating psychosocial stressor, age inappropriate displays of anger

Jo Bennett:
Histrionic: uncomfortable in situations in which she is not the center of attention, uses physical appearance to draw attention, inflated ego, has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic

Phyllis Lapin-Vance:
Eating Disorder

Oscar Martinez:
Conscientious

Pam Halpert:
Low Self-esteem, but she is much better now

Jim Halpert:
Procrastination, Sarcasm, Competitiveness

Darryl Philbin:
Surgency

Holly Flax:
I guess she is just a bit nerdy

The “Solitary Forager” Hypothesis of Autism: www.solitaryforager.com

I created a new web page recently to post my “theory of autism.” The theory attempts to explain why autism exists by elucidating its evolutionary history. Consistent with Simon Baron-Cohen’s systemizing theory of autism and with Temple Grandin’s positions, I see most autistic individuals as intelligent and autism as having compensatory advantages. Clearly, sometimes autism is accompanied by disease states, but the psychological "symptoms" of autism are seen here as attributes that would have benefitted a solitary forager (see the table at the bottom).


"To the extent that neurotypical individuals can be thought of as social foragers, autistic individuals can be thought of as solitary foragers."


There has been a lot of recent speculation and controversy over autism and what its existence "means.” A number of theoretical articles have been written on the subject such as the “Neanderthal theory of autism,” the “neoteny theory of autism,” the “extreme male brain theory,” the “imprinted brain theory” and the argument that autism is the “next stage in human evolution.” These are all interesting interpretations some of which may have some explanatory utility. I think that the “solitary forager hypothesis,” however; explains autism from the perspective of natural history.


Please take a look at:  www.epjournal.net/filestore/EP09207238.pdf


You can also find an early and unabbreviated version here: http://www.solitaryforager.com/
Abstract:This article reviews etiological and comparative evidence supporting the hypothesis that some heritable genes associated with the autism spectrum were naturally selected and represent the adaptive benefits of being cognitively suited for solitary foraging. The systemizing theory of autism is extended here and people on the autism spectrum are conceptualized as ecologically competent individuals that could have been adept at learning and implementing hunting and gathering skills in the ancestral environment. Upon independence from their mothers, young autistic individuals may have been psychologically predisposed toward a different life-history strategy, common among mammals and even some primates, to hunt and gather primarily on their own. Many of the behavioral and cognitive tendencies that autistic individuals exhibit are viewed here as adaptations that would have complemented a solitary lifestyle. For example, the obsessive, repetitive and systemizing tendencies in autism, which can be mistakenly applied toward activities such as block stacking today, may have been focused by hunger and thirst toward successful food procurement in the ancestral past. 


Individuals on the autism spectrum share a variety of behavioral traits with solitary species. Both solitary mammals and autistic individuals are low on measures of gregariousness, socialization, direct gazing, eye contact, facial expression, emotional engagement, affiliative need and other social behaviors. The evolution of the neurological tendencies in solitary species that predispose them toward being introverted and reclusive may hold important clues for the evolution of the autism spectrum and the natural selection of autism genes. Solitary animals are thought to eschew social contact as part of a foraging strategy often due to scarcity and wide dispersal of food in their native environments. Similarly, it is known that, due to frequent and prolonged dry spells, the human ancestral environment was often nutritionally scarce as well, and this may have driven human parties to periodically disband. Inconsistencies in group size must have led to inconsistencies in the manner in which natural selection fashioned the social minds of humans, which in turn may well be responsible for the large variation in social abilities seen in human populations. This article emphasizes that individuals on the autism spectrum may have only been partially solitary, that natural selection may have only favored subclinical autistic traits and that the most severe cases of autism may be due to assortative mating. This solitary forager hypothesis of autism is explored in the context of
anthropology, comparative neuroscience, epidemiology, evolutionary biology, neuroethology, and primatology.

 

Table 1: Behavior in autism, then and now

Trait or Symptom	Psychological  Consequences	Implications for Moderns	Implications for Solitary Foragers
High systemizing ability	A tendency to systematically explore the laws governing nonsocial processes	Eccentric or narrow but substantial knowledge and skills	An impetus guiding the acquisition of food procurement techniques
Obsessive, repetitious tendencies	Perseveration in behavior and thought	Repetitious play and need for sameness	Order, structure and autonomous self-regulation
Gaze aversion and absence of shared eye contact	Minimal eye contact and diminished attention to the faces of others	Unfortunate social hurdle	Instinctually prepared not to challenge or provoke conspecifics
Low oxytocin	Reduced social interest, learning and expressiveness	Unfortunately hindered social cognition	Programmed for a socially impoverished environment
Anomalies in anterior cingulate cortex, orbito and medial frontal cortex	Reduced social learning, capacity for empathy and affiliative need	Hindered social integration	Decreased reliance on others
Amygdala hyperactivity	Potentiation of innate and conditioned fears	Excessive anxiety and withdrawal from social world	Healthy caution, and fear of unfamiliar conspecifics
Hippocampal hyperactivity	Hyperaccessibility of contextual and episodic information	Proficiency with spatial tasks and contextual memory	Skill in tests of spatial intelligence