The cognitive style known as central coherence is receiving increased attention across a variety of clinical neuroscience disorders. I had not been familiar with this concept of central coherence. Essentially, central coherence describes a style of thinking on a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum, you have individuals who tend to think globally or using a gestalt perspective.
16 Vote(s)
July 29, 2010
July 14, 2010
Autism And Wealth
We live in societies where some people are richer than others - though the extent of wealth inequality varies greatly around the world.In general, it's sad but true that poor people suffer more diseases. Within a given country almost all physical and mental illnesses are more common amongst the poor, although this isn't always true between countries.So if a certain disease is more common in rich
17 Vote(s)
17 Vote(s)
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July 5, 2010
Parental Age as a Risk Factor for Bipolar Disorder
Advanced parental age appears to confer increased risk for a variety of clinical neuroscience disorders. First described in Down syndrome, advanced parental age at conception has now been linked to schizophrenia and autism. Effects of advanced parental age on risk have been found for both fathers and mothers. Some disorders appear to have more risk with paternal age while other appear to have
13 Vote(s)
13 Vote(s)
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June 25, 2010
Young People With Autism Are ‘lost In Transition’
Young people with autism are often "lost in transition" and not diagnosed or treated effectively as teenagers, an eminent neuropsychiatrist has said. They end up being excluded from school, or never going to school, and rarely come to the attention of psychiatrists...
5 Vote(s)
5 Vote(s)
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June 16, 2010
Once More into the Breach of Autism and Intellectual Disability (tweaked)
Written before the important Nature study by Pinto et al. (2010), this post takes several posts I've done in the past on autism and intellectual disability, as well as responses to an individual who is positing an 80% rate of ID in autistic disorder, and synthesizes them into one large post while hopefully streamlining it some slight bit.Citing Berkel et al. (2010) as proof that ID is present in
13 Vote(s)
13 Vote(s)
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February 24, 2010
Gene mutation is linked to autism-like symptoms in mice, researchers find
When a gene implicated in human autism is disabled in mice, the rodents show learning problems and obsessive, repetitive behaviors, researchers have found.
14 Vote(s)
14 Vote(s)
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February 18, 2010
Oxytocin versus autism: A cure for altruism
The widespread message arising from Andari et al. (in press) is that the hormone oxytocin "may be a powerful weapon in fighting autism" or words to that effect. The heart of this study is a computer game version of catch which appears to involve four human players. When a player is thrown the ball, he must then throw it to another player of his choice. Every time a player receives the ball, he re
12 Vote(s)
12 Vote(s)
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February 15, 2010
Asperger’s, Autism and Ambivalence: On Losing My Label
The DSM changes. Hot topic du jour. It seems to have engendered heated feelings on both sides. But me? I just don't know what I feel. <!--break-->Had you asked me a few years ago, what my feelings were on this issue - I'd probably land on the side that many with Asperger's do - in defense of the Asperger's label. Now, I'm not so sure. My feelings are
7 Vote(s)
7 Vote(s)
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February 13, 2010
What is severe autism?
We have to wait, patiently, for the DSM-V people to cough up their system for ranking and classifying all autistics according autism "severity." In the meantime, some recently reported data are worth mulling over. First, here is the most current DSM-V autism "severity" ranking-system proposal, and here is my response, including information about instruments commonly claimed to measure autism "sev
9 Vote(s)
9 Vote(s)
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February 5, 2010
Study which started the vaccine-autism fear has been retracted
by Joye C. Anestis Over the past few years, I've watched the vaccination-autism controversy with great interest. Just in case you're not aware of this issue, a group of people have been arguing, since the release of a paper in...
19 Vote(s)
19 Vote(s)
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