Mind Hacks

Research has been published in today’s Lancet on the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in the population of UK children, suggesting that these disorders are more common than previously thought.

The paper reported that the prevalence of ASDs in the population is 116·1 per 10,000 of the population Рmeaning just over 1% of the population are likely to qualify for one of these diagnoses.

“One of these diagnoses” is the crucial phrase here, as Baird and colleagues were not looking just for ‘classic’ or ‘narrowly defined’ autism (diagnosed as childhood autism in the ICD-10), but at the whole of the autism spectrum disorders – also known as pervasive developmental disorders.

BBC News has a good write-up on the study including a crucial quote from the Lancet article’s main author Professor Gillian Baird:

Whether the increase is due to better ascertainment, broadening diagnostic criteria, or increased incidence is unclear.

In fact, the reported prevalence of the narrow form of autism was only 38.9 in 10,000 of the population, less than 0.4%.

In contrast, autism spectrum or pervasive developmental disorders have a much broader scope, and can include both a 10 year-old child with no language, severe learning disabilities, lack of social interest and restricted interests (‘narrow’ autism) to a bright articulate 10 year-old child who is socially awkward and bit inflexible in his thinking.

This is largely because of fairly recently included diagnoses such as ‘Asperger syndrome’, ‘Pervasive Developmental Disorder – Not Otherwise Specificed’ (PDD-NOS) and ‘Atypical Autism’ which, particularly for the latter two, have much wider criteria.

Although Baird and colleagues used systematic methods for making their diagnoses, it’s interesting that there’s quite a pressure on everyday clinicians to make these sort of diagnoses for children who are having emotional or behavioural problems.

Having one of these diagnoses entitles children to special educational support or even a place in an expensive yet well-supported special school in many areas of the UK.

Who wouldn’t want special support for their child who is doing badly in education and is constantly distressed by school life? This in turn puts pressure on local clinicians, and on the medical establishment, to recognise these difficulties by widening the diagnostic criteria.

I sometimes smile to myself when I see news stories about science and medicine being out of touch with society, since the history of medicine suggests that there is an intimate connection between medical decisions and social needs.

Link to abstract of Lancet study on ASD prevalence.
Link to BBC News story on research.

Matt and I researched and co-wrote Mind Hacks using a wiki (MoinMoin). The wiki was just right for what we were doing – a brief, intense project with lots of information which needed efficient sharing and storing. Our use of the wiki was as part of the process, rather than aiming to produce a public, finished project (like say Wikipedia). We loved using the wiki as a provisional, shared, short-term memory – an ideal note taking device which allowed us to explore the ideas and information in Mind Hacks without getting bogged down by it all. We loved it so much that we’ve written an article about what wikis are and our view of how they are best used for the O’Reilly Network, What Is a Wiki (and How to Use One for Your Projects) – let us know what you think!

Nigel Smith is a respected British comedy writer whose new show Vent has just hit BBC Radio 4. It is based around his experiences of suffering a demyelinating brain stem lesion and falling into a serious coma.

Luckily, Smith has recovered, although still has difficulties with many everyday activities, but has managed to write a dryly comic show about the darkest of times with some wit and panache.

The show is full of reverie and comic fantasy, contrasted with incisive commentary on the banality of everyday family life when a member is less than willing to engage in conversation.

“Some rules about comas: 1) Mothers never switch off the life support. They can’t do it. Maybe it’s love? Maybe it’s for the first time since you were on the tit, they’ve got you where they want you. They finally know where you are, they know you’re warm, you’re eating regularly and you’re having those quiet nights in they always dreamed of.”

The show is archived online, so you can listen to past episodes if you’re not in the UK.

Link to audio archive of Vent.
Link to Times article on Smith’s experiences.

BBC News are reporting that Syd Barrett, the troubled genius and founding member of Pink Floyd, has passed away.

Barrett was rumoured to have had mental health difficulties, and his later solo albums are repleat with commentaries on the experience of mental turmoil.

He is commonly cited as one of the most influential musicians of his generation.

Shine on you crazy diamond.

Neurons in a Dish: Scientists at the Potter Lab have found that blobs of neurons cultured in a dish spontaneously generate hierarchical structures of periodic activity with population-wide spatiotemporal structure demonstrating oscillations. Certain patterns persist for hours, implying that perhaps that such in vitro neural preparations could be used to store memories.

Nerve Stump Interface: Horch and Dhillon have found that stimulation by electrodes implanted into the peripheral nerve stumps of amputees allow amputees to feel graded, discrete touch sensations in the phantom hand, and recorded motor neurons in the nerve stump can be used to set grip force and position in an artificial arm.

Re-assigning a Nerve: Kuiken has pioneered a technique in which remaining peripheral nerves that would have sent fibers to stimulate muscles in and transmit sensory information from an amputated limb, can be surgically moved within the body to an intact muscle, such as the pectoralis major. A small patch of this muscle ends up serving as a biopotential amplifier for the nerve stump, such that gross EMG signals from the newly reinnervated muscle patch can be used as myoelectric signals. Furthermore, when the skin overlying the patch is touched, the amputee experiences it as if the absent limb were being touched,

The most recent Synapse has just been published on A Blog Around the Clock with a collection of new psychology and neuroscience writing for your reading pleasure…

In addition, there’s also a neuroscience competition embedded in this edition:

This time, you have a puzzle to solve. Next to each entry, there is an image depicting the structural formula of a neurotransmitter, neurohormone or neuromodulator. Your job is to figure out what they are and leave the answers in the comments (or in your own posts that link to this edition)…

The winner – whoever is the first to correctly identify all ten compounds – will be highlighted first and with an extra post, when I host Encephalon, the other neurocarnival, later this Fall on November 6th.

There’s a few of the ‘classic nine’ in there, and the molecule accompanying the Mind Hacks post looks to be related to glycine, but I haven’t got any further than that.

Best of luck!

Link to latest Synapse neuroscience writing carnival.