All these so called “autistic traits in mice” just sound like a poor lil mouse under extreme stress. As someone whose special interest is mice ( and knows a lot about them and owns a few ) , this study is simply messed up and not okay…for multiple reasons. why can’t they just let autistic people be, as well as just let mice be :(
not defending this study, but aren't autistic traits in humans also like people under extreme stress? they get cranky over sensations they don't like, they can't handle things not going to plan, etc.
@@alficiro3238 we do not get “cranky” from stimuli we can’t handle. For me, it’s extremely excruciating - not just “stress”. I would also say to try avoid using the word “cranky” to describe the extreme overwhelm and pain , sensations may cause. And the struggle to handle situations not going to plan is a result of the lack of cognitive flexibility ( an executive function ). Overall, autism is a neurodevelopmental disability - not just being under “ extreme stress “ , I hope this helps 🐁
@@ashmelville I did not mean to demean the experience of autistic people and realize that "cranky" is the wrong word to use. but while autism is more complicated than just being under extreme stress, I do still find the similarities (such as increased sensitivity and loss of executive function) very interesting; it's as if autistic people are predisposed to stress like how people with depressive disorders are predisposed to -well- depression, there should be more research on this.
@@alficiro3238 As an autistic person, I have to agree with this. Especially as I have never ever had a meltdown (as far as I know, at least), but I am indeed predisposed to stress. Would be interesting to see if there is indeed a link or not.
@@Elora445 Also autistic I would like to know as well, I have two anxiety disorders. I do meltdown you would probably know they tend to be big loud draining and take a while to recover from like at least a few days.
The really really really dumb part of this is that if they poured this much time and money into supporting autistic people they wouldn't need to find a 'cure'. Everyone doesn't need to be the same, everyone just needs adequate support.
As a scientist who is 3X neurodivergent (AuDHD , bipolar II) and has been on lamotrigine (the drug used in this study) to treat my bipolar disorder, successfully, this study made me especially angry! Lamotrigine did wonders for me, but it did not cure my autism, obviously! I have so many thoughts about this particular study! I’ve also experienced many scientific talks about autism that make my blood boil. It’s like scientists have really no idea what autism is!
I got put on Lamotrigine for my so far drug resistant depression and anxiety, and I managed to get Steven-Johnson’s Syndrome. Yeah. Google Image that. Except I didn’t get the external rash, my connective tissues just started sloughing and bleeding. That was a fun month. I guess my Autism (and ADHD, other D’s) won’t get cured by these genius scientists. Rats!
I was on Lamotrigine for a while as a mood stabiliser. It seemed to work for a while... until it didn't, as with my experiences with most psych meds. It also left me more or less constantly nauseated. And no, it did not cure my autism.
I got a job as a lab tech at a local university last year. I can't tell you how shocked I was when I saw "autistic" on a group of mouse cages. WTF? For that reason and a hundred more, I quit at the end of my first week.
How the F can they even tell a mouse is autistic? Do they take a family history and life story of the mouse? I didn’t even get diagnosed until I was 35 as a human woman. So I doubt that anyone can tell if a mouse is autistic. They mostly don’t even know when people are. They just exclude us and call us weird.
@@JDMimeTHEFIRST I didn't stay in the job long enough to learn much about the research. But, you're right, at best they probably found a way to isolate a few "autistic traits" in the mice and went with it. Disappointing and unnecessary animal cruelty.
Omg. If I saw the "autistic mice" behaviour in a cat, my first thought would be severe stress response and/or depression, and my second thought would be a physical condition with a lot of pain. How do those "scientists'" brains work? If they have those at all.
While watching this, I had so many conflicting thoughts and feelings: 1- You make an adorable mouse, Sam! 🐭 I love your humorous yet intellectual analysis on this creepy article. 2- I feel so sorry for all the mice they are f**king around with for these "studies." The autistic mouse model really blows. 😔 3- It's pretty depressing that so much money is being poured into finding a "cure" for autism. I don't consider autism to be a "severe psychiatric disease" but the funding for this "study" apparently does! 🤬 Thanks for taking a light-hearted approach to a topic that would otherwise be upsetting and infuriating.
". I don't consider autism to be a "severe psychiatric disease"" Is it because perhaps you're a privilege autistic person, who just faces some bullying from society for being weird, and not a severely affected person, who is a burden on their parents, needs constant assistance to even go the bathroom and such?
Throwing some of my analysis and opinions to the mix, as an autistic bio scientist from a non-neuro field: They were studying the effects of mutations in a single gene ( MYT1L ) on human neurons in cell culture and on mice. Some behavioral markers in the mice with MYT1L defects were similar to autistic traits, according to their interpretation, which is both very problematic as Sam explains and unfortunately pretty standard for this field. They never call it an "autism mouse model" or "autistic mice" in the paper itself as far as I can tell, but the media surrounding it definitely does, and the paper itself is... Suggestive in that direction. They do admit autism is much more complicated than a single mutation but they reference autism again and again when reporting their results. Now, many papers in many different fields do some stretching of how relevant their results might be to some high-profile issue. The most common one is cancer, both because it's probably the most high profile issue in biomedical sciences, and because cancer is so complicated that you can actually make a reasonable link between cancer and your research in so many different fields. Most of the time however, such stretching of relevance is best relegated to the discussion section - not the results and definitely not the freaking title of the paper. It's irresponsible at best and a misleading inflation of significance at worst. Another thing to note is that what was reported as a "cure" in all the crappy news sites is really not, even if this was a clinical trial on actual autistic people. What they did was temporarily reverse some of those changes to measured behavioral markers (that, again, were framed as similar to autistic traits) using an epilepsy drug. It isn't a cure. It's a temporary treatment, like basically all psychiatric drugs. People with ADHD aren't "cured" by taking stimulants, and they don't become neurotypical while under the effects of the drug. So if people are worried someone will make an "autism-b-gone cure" based on research like this, it's highly unlikely. If anything, we're more likely to see psychiatric drugs with temporary, reversible effects, which might actually be interesting to have. The people we should be much more concerned with are the "in-utero detection" crowd that would enable misinformed expecting parents in electing to end pregnancies of potentially autistic fetuses, i.e eugenics.
Hi I was just wondering what science you do? I'm really interested in science and I'm thinking of doing genetics or neuroscience but obviously I'm worried about the curing autism stuff as I don't want any research I do to accidentally be used for that by future researchers
@@niamhs6042 I'm a molecular and cellular biologist by my degree title, but I also have substantial experience in genetics and genomics. If you want my opinion, go for it. The more open autistic folk we have in science, the more likely it is that the scientists working on autism will see autistics as neurodiverse colleagues vs. patients with a disease. It's not very likely that something you do will be used for autism research, unless you specifically target that field, in which case you can work from the inside to change the field's perception. Most scientists, in my experience, are not nefariously targeting autistic people. They got into neuroscience, and maybe the funding they could find came from this or that foundation that "fights autism" or whatever, so that dictates the focus of their research. The problem is ignorance of what autism actually means and how our lives look, not some evil plot. Also feel free to let me know if you're looking for more info or tips! I don't think RUclips dm's exist? So if you want feel free to message me on Reddit at u/galion1
I'm suddenly wondering if getting cats for our mental well-being was a good idea. Thanks a lot for diving into this unpleasant topic. As an engineer in a sciencific lab, I empathize with the struggle to publish, but it doesn't alleviate the icky overall feeling of those researches, and I fully agree with your POV.
I’ve got bad news for you. You didn’t. They’ve spent countless years learning to meow to sound like human children and communicate with people (they only meow at people, they won’t even do it to each other) as well as other changes that cause emotional calmness and playfulness to domesticate humans. You have it backwards. They aren’t the pet
Love this dive into "bad science!" I'm a sociology researcher interested in the social aspects of science - of which you've identified many here. In general, norms and "schools of thought" are quite powerful as well. Once a norm has been created, say, around "autistic mice" the future scholars build on that, as you said, and don't question the fundamental assumptions at play when you say you are studying "autistic mice". I recently had to have a conversation around this with a very smart, very well-meaning colleague who wanted to study the social implications of an autism diagnosis, and her research subjects were parents of autistic children. I had to firmly remind her that she wasn't studying autism, she was studying *parents* of autistic children. It's such a norm to ignore autistic voices, that she hadn't even thought to question that aspect of her research design. I told her, basically, "It's fine to study parents of autistic children. But you can't say you are studying autism in that case - you are studying parents of autistic children. Since autism has links to genetics, they may be autistic themselves, they may not, and there's all sorts of interesting things to study in that group. But it's not 'studying autism'".
Thank you so much for educating your colleague. One of the reasons I started researching autism through RUclips was the media focus on "how hard it is to raise a child with autism" while not actually telling me what autism is. I now know that it is too complex for a soundbite, and fear mongering gets more attention. I have genuinely learned more from autistics than from clinicians.
She could study adult people who receive a late diagnosis and the effects it has on them. But that would probably skew the picture as well because a lot of us/them have high-masking autism which comes with certain traits. I like that you talked to your colleague about the study - and that you reminded her that parents of neurodiverse children often are ND as well. So many of them don‘t know that and don‘t want to even think about that.
Hmm. That reminds me of when I was using a wheelchair, being pushed by my autistic son (who was a teenager). I did the social stuff, he did the pushing. When we went to a restaurant one time, I asked the waitress for a table for two. She completely blanked me and continued to address my son, who didn't know how to respond. As soon as she walked away I was so angry! I told my son to turn around and leave. He didn't understand what was going on but when I explained later he was angry. I made a formal complaint about the waitress' behaviour but never got a reply. Have boycotted that chain ever since. My point is that assumptions were made about both my son and me and neither were from a helpful point of view.
@@JaneAustenAteMyCat I've heard soo many people who use wheelchairs talk about how people just refuse to address them, and address replies to the questions from a wheelchair user to the none wheelchair user with them. It's really quite appalling how fucked up many peoples approach to disability is. Like if people can't get their heads round the idea that a person's legs not working well enough to support their weight doesn't affect their personhood, no wonder people just lose any sense of reality when required to interact with neurodivergent folks
Reminds me of that quote, 'Science advances one death at a time,' which sounds pretty dark, but just refers to the ned for particular people in positions of power with particular ideas have to die before new ideas get to flourish.
It's too early for me to be crying (10 til 7 am in the U.S) But honestly, since being diagnosed autistic I am SO happy to get to know myself! My 3 y.o little boy is autistic as well, my wife severe adhd and we have another little boy on the way! I hope so deeply our next child is ND as well. I wouldn't want them to feel alienated from the rest of us but also this: I almost feel like neurotypicals are the ones at disadvantage. As an ND I lack the ability to filter out irrelevant information. I hear EVERYTHING, and I experience huge pendulum swings between different areas of life. Some are good, and some bad. But I get ALL of it. I feel like NTs have blinders on that only let them experience life close to "the middle". They don't feel, see or hear anything like as strongly as I do, and therefore aren't experiencing life fully. The problem is that the world is setup for them, not us. And it's a shame too because my out of the box thinking makes me a Rockstar to most NTs. It's the direct communication they hate me for lmao Cheers and love and weird autistic high fives from Memphis, Sam ❤ *edited to add that your hair is very nice indeed, and as a bald person I'm quite envious 😅*
Who set up the world really? The world needs more diverse minds to work together. Neuro typical people need to be coached to accept the Neuro diversity in this world. Clear rules of social gathering No politics or group games No acting or cheating or back stabbing No sign language unless you are hearing impaired. "Use your words". .....and so many. If NT don't have any genetic problems, then they can be trained and educated more easily (if only they would like to).
Couldn't agree more! It often feels to me as though NTs aren't experiencing anything with any real passion/intensity and are just sleep-walking through life.
Just the description of the "model" was enough to make my eye's roll. So much trash science these days that the important and meaningful science gets hidden or dismissed due to the noise.
There is a possibility that this project was brought to life to spend the remaining budget of the institute because otherwise their funding for the coming year would be cut down. What do you do with your dumbass undergrads that are useless apart from learning things by heart? Let them cook SOMETHING maybe they'll learn something. Here...they learned how to damage mice and (this I can't explain) that no one bats an eye that their understanding of what autism is worse than your racist uncle's.
Great video, good work. As a retired professor and scientist, I find all of your comments to be spot on, exactly correct, well deserved. I have seen, all my life, the conflict of interest in the "publish or perish" academic requirements. As should be obvious to everyone, the quality of work has dropped to nearly zero and no one is reading any papers because they are all frantically writing. Do put on a combat helmet and flak jacket because scientists will not appreciate the truth of your analysis. Scientists pretend to be rational and even tempered because they are neither. Keep up this important work. It's the majority in a society, in this case neurotypical, which have the disorder when they characterize minorities as disordered. There are disorders: the flu, a headache, excessive depression and anxiety. Treat those disorders. There are many aspects of autism which are very positive. Those are not disorders. Thank you.
Loved all the puns! Yes, please do more videos about autism research. Much of the research bends over backwards to turn strengths into pathologies when it comes to autistic people. Often I’m reading it with my mouth agape.
For sure. I read your comment here very quickly, in fact, being a "hyperlexic" autistic woman. However since I should not be understanding what you wrote, after all, since researchers have stated that the deficit of hyperlexia causes us autistics to read without understanding. So probably I randomly typed these characters without understanding.
You could do a whole series breaking down papers from autism research! There are some real shockers out there, and your analysis is both insightful and very entertaining ✌️💕🌻
Please do more of these. I think the research deserves a critical response. Autism Speaks is funding research into the genetics of autism and I think they also contribute to ADHD research. Your a great advocate for autism and you put a human face on an otherwise extremely misunderstood and looked down upon nuro type.
they do very much remind me of the behaviours my families last dog exhibited when he started suffering from intestinal discomfort that eventually turned out to be bowel cancer. Loss of interest in social interactions, compulsive licking and shivering, no longer making nest out of his bedding but just flopping down on it how it was. Poor guy was just feeling sick and in pain. He hadn't suddenly developed autism
I looked up differences between mice and rats in human behavioral research. Mice can be "mutated" easier than rats but, as you said, rats are way superior when comparing the similarities to human behaviour. "Considering the complex and collaborative nature of human social behaviour, these species differences are highly relevant in modelling social behaviour deficits. Particularly in relation to ASD, where reductions in social behaviour and social communication are core symptoms, mice might not be the ideal model given their intrinsic lack of receptiveness to social interaction (Moy et al., 2008, 2007)." Source: review article by Bart Ellenbroek and Jiun Youn. They said it so simply. Yet..
'Mutant Autistic Mice' sounds like an alt rock band name or the title of a sci fi novel or maybe graphic novel. It gives a TMNT + Biker Mice from Mars vibe.
Why do people have to do this. Why can't they just accept that everyone is different, that we all have needs, and just accommodate the needs people have, small or big.... Coming up with a "cure" is not the solution, and it makes people feel like there is something wrong with them. That they can't be different. The world would be very boring if everyone were the same.
Because money, because autism has been an extremely pathologised diagnosis and the mindset of "They need to be fixed!" is still entrenched, because researchers suck. No, I do not have a good view of either the medical industry, medical research, for how stigmatized they have made us.
👍👍 thank you for a) finding the facts here and b) finding the humour. This whole notion of "curing" neurodivergence makes me feel sick. Thank you for shedding light on this subject through your research, empathy and common sense 👍👍!
Oh my gosh, I really shouldn’t be laughing this hard but the science nerd in me couldn’t help myself. Yes I would love to see you tear into another, questionable at best, study. The jokes in this one really did just write themselves. 😆 Thanks for sharing, very informative & not an easy task to explain a huge study, in about 20 minutes. Sometimes laughter can be great medicine. (And I love the ears, don’t put those away, they were a brilliant add to this post 🙌💯) ☮️
My cat must be autistic too. He has bad social skills. He's non verbal. He's obsessed with this red dot. (psst, This explains why you can't look for human psychological traits in non-human species, each species, even among mammals and even primates, is rather different)
Yes, scientific validity is very important. And besides criticizing or appraising papers, which is already something that we really need, there is one thing that I would really really like to have: an overview over where we stand, research-wise. Something like an autism wiki. A place where all the concepts, ideas and results of autism research go, with all the appraisals and criticisms that we all can find. Linking to papers, reviews, videos. With discussions on “Talk” pages. And so on. I know, nobody can “just do that”. This needs servers, software, maintenance, etc., and people who take care of this. I don’t know if anybody is in a position to do this or fund this. I am not, and I don’t think people here in general are able to do this. But I still wanted to put this idea ”out there”. Also, I don’t expect that a consensus appraisal can be reached easily on any given topic. I rather expect that a variety of appraisals will be possible. But the value of having something like this is that it could be a place where we can work together towards evaluating the scientific validity of concepts, research and results. And people could then go to there to get information about the subject and understand better where research stands.
The sodium channels bit made me think immediately of drugs for hypertension. And a lot of anti-anxiety drugs are also prescribed more and more for hypertension (prazosin under the brand name of "Minipress" [which I've been prescribed for BOTH hypertension and anxiety] comes to mind). Another anxiety drug I take is also prescribed as a non-stimulant ADHD drug. I'm think ADHD like you, but also hypertension treatment.
Another comment mentioned the drug, something it was used to treat for them, and that they are also on the Autism spectrum. For me it's a 'top comment' in the comment's section, so near the top, but in case it isn't I've quoted below; "As a scientist who is 3X neurodivergent (AuDHD , bipolar II) and has been on lamotrigine (the drug used in this study) to treat my bipolar disorder, successfully, this study made me especially angry! Lamotrigine did wonders for me, but it did not cure my autism, obviously! I have so many thoughts about this particular study!" I've not included their channel title/name just in case they delete their comment for personal reasons after I saw it, even though it has been up for 3 weeks now so is unlikely. I just thought I'd share in case you didn't see it before. I thought down similar routes when I heard 'sodium channels' too, of other actually treatable/manageable conditions linked with the brain that are already treated/managed with that method. There's plenty it can be good for, 'curing' Autism isn't one of them.
Yes, please do more reviews of scientific papers. I particularly like that you try to make a balanced review, addressing everything from the nonsense to the potentially useful. And yeah, it is good to have some fun while doing it.
Yeah, I stumbled upon the article as well a couple weeks back and I was so enraged when seeing this. I decided to read it anyway just so that I could know what it said. I've been waiting since I read this ridiculous article for someone to talk about it, so thank you for doing so.
This whole thing reeks of behaviorism. I thought we already determined behavior alone is not indicative of what autism really is, so how on earth could we diagnose it in a mouse?
Thank you for a lovely video! There is just one thing I wish that would have been addressed but that I don't think was mentioned. To us, we obviously see how autism does not translate to mice, but to people who aren't as familiar with autism, I feel that there is a bit of a gap in the reasoning presented as to why this research is silly. I think it could be addressed by asking the question, "WHY is autism a thing that only applies to humans?" I think the conversation would lead into the area of the social model of disability vs. the medical model of disability, which might make the conversation a little hairy, but I think it's worth it. (For example, there are definitely cultural factors that would make someone seem more, or less, autistic. Like in the US, eye contact is unnecessarily demanded, and autistic people tend to break that social expectation, which is one of the reasons autistic people get labeled as autistic. But in Japan, eye contact is frowned upon and can seem rude and aggressive, so an autistic person who doesn't do eye contact in Japan won't be called out for this oddity, as it is not even an oddity in that environment. This conversation is impossible to translate to animals, obviously. I just think some people might need help connecting these dots.)
I read this article recently and your analysis is priceless! That, and the mouse ears! I may need to get some for myself ;) Your channel has helped me so much. Thanks for all you are doing!
Part of the issue with this paper is how it’s reported in the pop science media. They make these sweeping claims that aren’t in the paper or might be hinted at for further research. I’m not saying that the mouse model is useful for autism and ADHD, I just think part of the issue is how it’s reported to the general public.
Idk what to say after this video I researched for five hours so….. but I love you Sammy I can’t describe how much you help me thru different stages of my life
The mouse ears is so cute haha! I love your channel btw, it has helped me stand my ground and demand a re-diagnosing as me, my family and friends all agree that the diagnosis i have is very wrong and harmful to my future, so thanks for giving me the knowledge about autism in girls, so i can fight for the right "label"
I think you're right that such neurological research, if done well, could potentially be beneficial in learning more about how nervous systems work and maybe treating actual severe illnesses (in the long run), but the notion of a mouse model for neurodevelopmental variance in humans--the most neurologically and socially complex species on the planet--just seems a huge stretch. While I would love to find better treatments, for instance, for depression in people on the autism spectrum--since the treatments that work for neurotypical people often don't seem to work very well, at least not for me--there's no NEED to cure autism. It would be nice to make it at least a little bit easier for people on the spectrum to maximize their many individual strengths and to help reduce those things which cause persistent suffering for autistic people--like depression and anxiety, among other things. I don't know what I'm really getting at, but I just wanted to give you kudos and try to express the ways I think you made very good points.
I've been looking into depression research indirectly -- I was looking to adopt a dog and stumbled down the very deep hole of spay/neuter research Some of the depression research uses animal models also -- mostly rodents -- and triggers the condition via gonadectomy aka full spay/neuter -- but it looks like that model is actually good/works for certain types of depression as far as I can tell. In humans, gonadectomy/hormone deprivation can be an elective procedure, used to treat cancer, and replicated via chemical castraction (used for sexual predators, tho not legal/considered cruel now iirc) -- and depression has been found to be a side effect in humans (thou at lower rates then in rodents to my understanding). It's fucked up how they test it -- "forced swim test" where they see how they react to being forced to swim (and gonadectomized rodents don't try to swim/save themselves as much iirc). In dogs/cats, depression levels as a side effect of spay/neuter hasn't been studied as far as I can tell, but lowered activity (contributing to weight issues) has been seen, and as well as in dogs, anxiety/reactivity (which can lead to aggression/problematic behaviour) -- (ho some research is conflicting, but that seems to be due to contributing factors (socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, along with breed/size/age hugely effect dog behaviour -- in underserved areas, most dogs are intact vs nearly opposite in middle class and up neighborhoods). Thus one of reasons why some are switching to other forms of birth control (the other reasons being it's also increasing the cancer rates/bone/joint issues likely more then the reproductive issues it's reducing in dogs). But yea, perhaps the depression reasons that are replicated via gonadectomy (and medication tested using gonadectomy) tend to different with autism? But guessing they're also researching depression in much more ways then the rodent model, I wasn't looking into overall depression research.
I´m from Germany and since I´ve been diagnosed with ADHD 1,5 years ago I watched and read all I could find about neurodiversity, espacilly about expierences from others and whenever I´m on youtube it really gets me like... I must be autistic too... like I never related so deeply to things people told about themselves. Well. And then you go to an official german homepage about autism and it´s a hole other world. Full of assumptions and stereotypes und all writen as if never an autistic person been asked how it looks and feels from the inside to be like that. All that is been discribed is the obviosly observable different - and mostly as problematic seen - behaviour that a halfblind could spot from km away. It´s interesting and horrible at the same time. In the english-speaking neurodiverse network I´m definitly ADHD and very likely autistic too; in Germany most Psychologists even question my ADHD although it´s been officially diagnosed. I have that guess that german science leans on "facts" about autism (and ADHD) from 30 years ago and doesn´t make any move forward. Also I think there is no "cure" for autism needed but it would be nice if there was a cure for the pain it brings with itself sometimes.
I don't think that any good researcher using animal models would say with any degree of certainty that the animal model reflects a human condition such as autism, schizophrenia, depression etc. That being said, animal models (I'll leave the ethics of animal research out of this answer as it is a whole topic on its own) are often the first step in finding out how the genetic mechanisms of a condition affect behavior, brain etc. I don't think it's unreasonable to model these conditions based on animals as humans are just one species of animals sharing the same basic genetic and neural machinery and the same basic principles with the machinery as other animal species because of evolution. No one (except for some clueless journalists etc.) is suggesting that animal model of autism has one-to-one relationship with human autism. However, if you can reproduce somewhat similar neural alterations to autism in mice as with humans you can potentially test medicines to see what the outcome is. This is just a first step of eliminating/selecting potential molecules that might alter autism traits. Further research is necessary and would include the use of human subjects to verify how a substance would affect autism traits. As to whether autism should be "cured" is an another complicated question. Since humans are a social species with most humans being increbly sensitive to reading other people based on their assumptions how a proper person should act, people with autism can and will encounter a lot of exclusion, scorn and condescending amusement from the neurotypicals. You could argue that you can teach the neurotypicals for being more tolerant to autistic people but when these social behaviors are "hard-coded" to the social brain of neurotypicals, the results of these teaching are often superficial at best and result in condescending, pseudo-friendly behavior towards autistic people. Trying to change the whole society often results in superficial changes in language and behavior that makes the neurotypicals just feel better about themselves. As a result, autistic people have significantly increased risk of suicide, anxiety, depression and increased chances of feeling completely alienated from the society as a whole. Other people are hell and you can paint this hell with pretty colors to make it look more applealing but this still doesn't change the fact that that other people are still, in fact, hell. If there was a potential medicine for reducing social anxiety, making one with autism understand social behavior of others more and generally being viewed in more positive terms instead of being viewed as that "creepy weirdo" with whom, from the perspective of neurotypicals with the tolerance training, social interaction is a chore that at best provides these people with positive self-image of being progressive and tolerant, wouldn't that medicine be worth a shot? It would reduce social anxiety, give confidence and probably reduce the risk of suicide and feelings of being alienated and disconnected from society/other people.
they had a drug that cured Jewishness also during ww2... in a chemical shower... is autism something that should be "cured"? some people think autistic people are like a different form of humanity... maybe more advanced? a lot of autistic people are clever... when i was 19 i got iq test 152 on mensa.. but i never achieved anything due to my crippling anxiety & shyness & never having enough help... i did tons of courses and passed them all and never got a career. i realised when older after being diagnosed that id been trying to pretend to be "normal" my whole life due to being bullied for being different in school & college... i think people call it masking... anyway.. now.. cos i had such trouble getting benefits & having to go thru tons of appeals with people claiming i dont deserve it cos i looked them in the eye one too many times or i recently bought a new £2 t-shirt and dont have food all over it... so i must therefore not be disabled enough.. i sometimes now feel like i cant even mask and pretend to be "normal" anymore cos now i fear if i look at people too much they might cut off my benefits.. so ive found since being diagnosed, im actually socialising even less and having an even worse life than before... and no one actually helps you... so being diagnosed hasnt helped my life at all other than getting a bit of extra money.. no one actually helps u with the things u need help in, all they want to do is tell you what to do in the things you dont want help with... like telling me to stop climbing trees.. or telling me what sh*tty job i should try to get.. or trying to force me to socialise in situations i dont want to be in... ie.. i like to do something i enjoy to do and have the possibility to socialise during that thing.. like walking... or playing computer games or something... not going specifically to a place to do nothing but socialise.. which is my idea of a boring time and totally pointless. i want to meet people with similar interests and talk about those things with people while doing them.. not sit in a room with total randoms and drink tea and do boring small talk... and now they expect me to PAY for this torture.. apparently a charity that is supposed to be helping me wants ME, the person they are supposed to be helping, to PAY for doing something i dont want to do.. drinking badly made tea... usually luke warm with scum floating on it when made by other people... im supposed to do what other people suggest all the time instead of them helping me do what i want to do.. its odd that?
👍👍I hear you, man. For what it's worth I get most of my socialising via RUclips. We don't have to feel painfully different or alone when we come together like this 👍👍
@@philurbaniak1811 and there is no awkward silences or misunderstandings (or fewer) and shyness and anxiety of being worried someone got upset etc.. what i find annoying which is a problem especially in england, but less so when i go abroad is, everyone expects you to say please & thank you like 50 times for one simple transaction.. why cant i just say it once beginning & end? i find it quite tiring & pointless.. also in england people keep apologising for everything even when they dont need to... i just walk by and they turn and say "oh sorry" & move when they werent in my way... and im supposed to waste time having some chit chat with them this whole ordeal of replying to that saying its ok or something. i never quite know what they want me to say.. and so since i got diagnosed i just dont say anything anymore.. like in other countries... and now i dont have to feel awkward but then u get that person often tutting after or whispering to another person about how rude i am or something.. like they interrupted me for no reason trying to force me into saying something and when i dont say it theyre upset and IM the rude one? its a bit like if someone u dont know gives u a gift u didnt want and then says, "where the fk is mine then??? ahole!!" and when people do actually do something bad to you, or get in ur way taking up an entire aisle of the supermarket and not moving for 5 minutes not moving when they can plainly see u.. then they dont apologise... its madness
I don't know if you've made a video on this, but shutdowns [an internalized form of meltdowns] don't really get talked about much and I think spreading awareness on them would be valuable. I have experienced shutdowns throughout my life and didn't recognize that for what it was because I had no words for it. I just knew some days I "couldn't" anymore, and didn't want to interact, wanted to teleport back home or just disappear to give me time to recharge.
Thank you, I love how you present this topic. Holy crap! Science can sure turn a few really bad corners. I am so impressed with your ability to teach in a fun and interesting manner. Since I just turned 70, when I look back at my sense of self in the '50s & '60s and my parents' sense of me at that time - was so distorted - no one knew I was Autistic. I stutter, have a condition called (PS) poland-syndrome (which is the Doc's name who coined the condition), and my IQ & test scores were way above average, so everyone thought that being academically so capable should save me from any of life's real problems. But it didn't. Thank goodness for your generation being able to express this Truth. I Was a Mask for my entire life. I was either beaten or raped into submission. Y'all here on RUclips who know the truth about AS - have given me a better opportunity to Know Myself. And now I am gracefully aging with Agency that I never had before Neuro-Diversity started becoming understood. Yo Samdy Sam, please keep on keepin' on this work of clarifying what's BS! I love your videos.
Never too late. : ) I am also in my 70's and am finally understanding and accepting my life and myself. I am so grateful for people who are courageous enough to share their experiences.
Gotta love seeing a mouse getting an autism assessment. Do they also have to wait 4 years? Random vaguely related question: Have you come across studies that look into autism and nationality? While looking at autistic traits and preferences in an English speaking country, I can't help but wonder that quite a lot of them are 'normal' German traits. Have there been more neurodivers people in power in German history to make the society better adjusted for them? Is a larger proportion of the population autistic? Did the autistic Saxons stay and the neurotypical Saxon move to the British Islands?
Doc: Ok then Whiskers, would you say you're fixated to dates? Autistic mouse: Yes, but they must be dried, left in an open bag and expired between 2008 and 2014.
@@0oFlicko0 Hehuh, well I just though you might be German and therefore appreciate some silly humour 😅 The actual AQ test question nr.9 goes "I am fascinated by dates" and obviously refers to calendar dates, but a mouse would definitely prefer the edible ones. And be very fussy about them 😂
I have only just started this video and already Infeel thankful to you that youdismantle this study. Also i loooooove those mouse ears on you. You look so cute with them. And also they bring a seemnse of humour to this video which is so nice cause that people want to cure autism is so outrageous. Acceptance of autistic people by society at large and provide for spaces where there is less noise, less faking by non autistic people would be so wholesome for not only people on the spectrum but also those who arent. .
What a hilarious video, thanks for sharing it! Absolutely loved all the... cheesy... puns! Also... even for the chance (/danger?) of unlocking a whole new target audience for your channel... I vote for you keeping the mouse ears. 🐭
Most scientific research is just an exercise in (a) validating the preconceptions of the researchers and (b) justifying funding. A previous editor of the BMJ said that 85% of metabolic epidemiological is 'mendacious'
I am 3 minutes in and have already heard enough to know where this one is going. But it made me think about something that I’d like to talk about. I, as a high functioning autistic individual. Prefer to have my autism, over not. It’s part of what makes me who I am. Yes, it sucks sometimes in how it affects my every day life, but it gives me gifts of creativity, and the ability to analyze things in ways others normally wouldn’t. I have a perspective that is unique to me, and I don’t particularly want to be “cured” of that. I know that in more severe cases, it may be better to be free of autism’s burdens, but that’s a wish that I think should be left to the autistic individuals in question. Though based on my interactions with others in the same ballpark as me, our general consensus is typically that our quirks, though odd and sometimes frustrating, are awesome for us, and can sometimes even be admired by others.
This was really interesting to watch, love that us autistics have to put up with this nonsense. Thank you for making a video on this, I’m glad I know more about what is currently going on in the wonderful world of anti-autism haha
This was fascinating and funny too! My son and I both have a variant of unknown significance in the ADNP genome and we both have an autism diagnosis. Love the ears! 💞
This is by far my favourite video of yours. Witty & cutting from someone who has qualifications (that block the 'you don't know...' squad) all while looking great in mouse ears. tbh I'm surprised they haven't tried fruit flies as they're so much easier to fk up with a fast turn around. pls more video's explaining & attacking the really p-ss poor research that's going on these days that's being passed off as science.
OK, so as an Aspie to another Aspie, I will go strait: You have some good points but a lot of... not so good ones. 1) To be honest, mice are used as they are the best we have... here as well as in any other research: they are mammals, they are small, they breed fast, they are easy to be kept, we know a lot about them, their genes, and their behaviour / ethology. As far as we know our limitations, the research on them can bring some useful facts... problem could be with a lot of MDs in the field, who, compared to average biologist, usually don't have this in their minds plus their knowledge of scientific method is usuall weaker (as far as my experience in my part of the word reaches). 2) You are right, that mice aren't as social as we are. From my point of view, their biggest problem is, that although they are able to recognize memmeber of their group, they aren't able to recognize who exactly it is (they don't have "names"). From this point of view, rats are far better model. The model is always about what you want to answer. 3) Genetics are able to produce / create a mouse with the very same mutation of the very same gene as in some cases with people on the spectrum. With having all the things above in your mind, you can check, if there are some changes in their behaviour compared to their siblings and close relatives. At least you have an answer, if the gene can do something with changes in behaviour. Well, to be honest, I cannot, as I am bad in reading mice behaviour the same way as in humans. 4) You can have mice without any gut microbiota in controled conditons. You can "infect" them with a mixture of microbiota you want to. As there is a strong suspicion, that products of gut microbiota can affect your brain or brain of your child to be born... and this is a system, how to understand it. 5) Cell cultures and organoids cannot copy the blossomed out mind of anyone, but they can show us, what is happening inside the brain with neurons without need to look inside the head of mouse or man. 6) Of cause, everything is basic research giving ideas to applied one, trying to understand, what is happening not only in people with ASD but in every single brain. It is complicated, it can be misleading sometimes, but as I have already written: it is basic research and you need to start somewhere. In biology you also do not have these double-blinded experiments. Contrary, you have two descriped groups, who differ in as few conditions as possible... ideally only the one you study, plus you should use randomization. If you are right or not will be check by repetition of your experiment by someone else. 7) And another agreement: Click-baits are killing reporting about research. Or do you think, that people would read something like: "Scientest have proved, that some gene with an abbrevation you do not know what it is, changes behaviour in laboratory mice and by the way the same gene is muted in poeple of a certaine type of autism" ? 8) If you ever been to academia, you would find, there is a lot of people with autistic traits.... not all of them are diagnosed, and sadly, they aren't usually in leading possitions (as even science is a social thing), but they are there. In that respect, I find the claim of yours, that they haven't seen anyone on the spectrum, as the most misleading. To sum up, research on mice and cell cultures has its place in understanding brain development including disorders connected with it including autism. Scientest and journalists reporting about its results should be carreful though not to rise any high expectations. I can imagine, that the "cure" in the future coul look like also this way: A mother will know, based on genetic screening, that several genes connected with development of ASD are mutated, so she will be recommended to alter her diet during pregnancy (or be more strict), so she lower probability of development of more serious (i.e. low-functional) ASD in her child. This would be fine with me - knowledge-based, self-decision, still no 100% guarantee. And by the way: Nice ears.
Maybe there is more to agree than you are realizing at the moment. I think you are in the mousetrap of thinking that autism is only a disability. The cure we so urgently need is to see autism as a difference. In the end autism is a welcome and needed phenomenon that enriches the world we live in. The most important cure is acceptance and inclusion.
@@peinzen There is not a word about me thinking it is only a disability. It is a double-edged sword though, which disables you from standard social life and making you more vulnerable to those, who want to take advantage over you, as a result. All the hypersensitivity, facial blindeness, melt-downs, shutdowns, and regresssions are making you to deal with things no NT will probably ever deal with or understand. Thank you for such enrichments. It can give you some advantages from other parts of your life. But calling it just some blessing for this is eqally dangerous, maybe more. We are not just different. We are different in certain way and we should understand it. Acceptance without understanding is shallow, it is just a pity. For example, if you have a man with serious autism, non-speaking, freaking out from any small change, unable to control his body with his mind and will. He can hurt people around him including his parents, what he doesn't want to do. He can hurt himself instead, what he doesn't want to do. Wouldn't it be better for him to have some solution based on our knowledge, which could help him to overcome the problems, to help him to enjoy the world with those he loves without any fear from himself? In such a case acceptance isn't enough (but still better than nothing).
Thank you for posting all these lovely videos! which have been very helpful. I have a doctor's appointment soon and I still thought I should ask you one weird question before that, because I dont think I will be asked this question and I want to somehow explain her. So, many times (mostly when I'm tired) I have a moment when I loose focus of my eyes and my eyes look away just for half of a second or so and then continue focusing by their own. I was wondering if this is common amongst people on the spectrum or maybe it happens to u too? or this could be something else
I agree with everything, BUUUUUUUUT there is absolutely nothing against animals also being autistic or having trauma or whatever other psychological characteristics. If bees can develop trauma, mice can be autistic/highly intelligent/ tend to homosexual behaviour/sensitive, whatever. We humans are very complex creatures and will show very complex symptoms, but that doesn't mean we are the only ones in the animal kingdom to present these features. Another very valid point is that of high sensitivity. As you know, the High Sensitive Person, classification coined by Dr. Elaine Aaron, is just another term for autism. Back in 1995 the poor woman didn't have any real frame of reference for her "female" autism. I read her book from that year, which was based on her nephews btw, both later in life diagnosed as autistic, and got to the conclusion that the HSP-trait is plain, good, ole, cookie-cutter autism. The thing is, she's done extensive research identifying and documenting the "trait" in over 100 species, from dogs to goldfish. So, it is a pain that they are trying to erradicate/cure autism, but it is also very plausible that animals can be autistic as well. But this is a very thought-provoking video! Thank you Sam, I adore you very much (I just disagree on this very specific point)
And flamingoes can be gay. Not relevant but just wanted to add/mini info dump. Also otters hold hands when they fall asleep so they don’t drift apart in the water. Nearly as cute as Sam’s mouse ears
I watched something recently about the development of the brain from earliest fish and fish-like creatures like lampreys which showed that genetic markers for autism were present before all others, meaning these autistic markers are the earliest. I am so sorry I cannot now recall what it was. It was an autism friendly channel though. It was very scientific, very complicated. It was evolutionary biology. If I can find it again I will come back here and update.
@@tracik1277 I had also heard about the theory that autism was the main trait of the human mind and that we used to be the neurotypicals, now they won the upper hand and dominate. Fascinating.
I absolutely LOVED this video! It was not AT ALL what I was looking for when I came to your channel, but WOW, you really had me cracking up throughout the entire thing! I WANT MORE! I WANT MORE! I WANT MORE! 😂 More calling out bs research, more costumes, more punny jokes, and more bloopers! 😊❤ Thank you bunches for this random nugget of solid gold!❤🙏👍
It was really fun to watch this one. Aside from being slightly anxious about what this research suggests, I laughed a lot about your jokes. Thank you. .. Also, wouldn't there be much more money in a medicine that cures ignorance? So much more potential. They should start a research about this as soon as possible.
How did the mice show autistic behavior? They probably excelled in tech and got employed in Silicon Valley, or maybe in accounting, research, healthcare or design. Way to go, mice! Now they can get to space, as well.
Thank you for this video. You ask at the end if anyone has come across any studies they have read and thought 'WTF'...and yes, I have! I'm struggling with my recent diagnosis (well, it's been two years) and am now reading more and have thankfully found your insightful RUclips channel (thank you). But today I came across a recent research paper 'Epidemic of False Diagnoses of Autism' by David Rowland, and wondered if you'd possibly read it and please share your thoughts? I have felt very lost and began to find some self-awareness and understanding but this paper has completely confused me and I feel rather lost again. Thank you
I really want to become a research scientist and I'd love to research autism not for a cure but to try and help promote autistic people's rights and make them feel less alone (science makes me more confident in myself and I'd like to help people like me). I'd really like to research burnout as well so I can help people avoid it. But I'm really scared about the eugenics thing if people steal my research or build on it for bad things. The fields I'm interested in are neuroscience and epigenetics (which could be used to treat cancer and things like that) but there's so much in both these fields that's directed at curing autism and I don't know if I should take the risk. But I feel like getting autistic people into autism research is super important? These are just my thoughts at the beginning of this video
Any study allegedly about autism with the words 'mouse' and 'fecal' in the title is usually good for a giggle (and absolutely nothing else). Right until you realize that money is being spent on that nonsense rather than the stuff autistic people have been asking to be researched. Such as autistic inertia, or how different drugs impact autistic people and if there's a pattern to the hyper, hypo, and paradoxical responses we seem to experience more frequently than the general population. Most ABA papers are _interesting_ when you look at them. There's already been a dog trainer who went over the issues with an ABA paper using ABA techniques to train problematic behaviour out of dogs (read: It was a horror story and a step by step guide of how not to train dogs. The dog trainer's conclusion? These researchers just turned the dog into a timebomb by training it to suppress its natural body language and nothing else. On top of the issues that basically all ABA papers are based around case studies of 1 or 2 participants (this one included), but I'm sure if you looked at the leading ABA journals you'd be able to find a mountain of horrifically bad papers.) But the study that most springs to mind is one I read that tried to paint 'valuing honesty over monetary reward' (I think) - which it claimed it found autistic people were more likely to do - as a bad thing, while also being an experiment that when I read it looked more like one designed to assess risk aversion - Something about drawing balls from a jar and trying to predict if the jar had more balls of one colour or another, with rewards for getting it right. And then variants where the reward changed based on how many balls you picked out of the jar (fewer being higher reward), and the change in reward structure impacted the behaviour of the NTs in the study more than the autistic people. Which... That's a risk aversion experiment. Not whatever the hell they were trying to imply it was (which the paper painted in a _really_ weird way, seemingly trying to imply that being less susceptible to bribes is a bad thing?). Sadly can't find it right now.
As a mouse, and an autistic one, i can confirm that these studies are completely bunk; first place i jump to is the ethics disclosures followed by methodology, and its usually instantly clear how they reached these absurd conclusions My fave bad example will always be any mouse studies that show tumorous mice as proof that some drug or another is bad; when in fact theyre usin a mouse species that is literally most well known for its extremely high propensity to grow tumours. Anythin not usual to that mouses lifestyle and they will probs grow tumors; even without such theres still like a one in ten chance any given mouse becomes tumorous. Literally torturin these mice for PR pics
I wish they would just leave the poor mice alone. and the guinea pigs, and dogs and whatever else they think they have a right to abuse in this way. The whole thing sounds extremely suspect.
I know. I've always been against animal research for any reason whatsoever (which I realise is a controversial opinion when it comes to things like finding a cure for cancer...but so be it).
Hi, I have a question about asd, not quite related to the video though. Is it true that autistic ppl do the raptor hands? I saw a bunch of tiktoks about it, but I don't think I want to base my knowledge on tikoks. I cannot find much information about it anywhere, so I'm wondering if this is an actual thing or just a myth.
If they cured my autism then I’m not sure what would be left. I would not be the person my fiends care about and my husband loves. As a (past) scientist I also recognise research that’s mouse poo.
I've been on the medication used in this study. I was still autistic the entire time. This is ridiculous. The good news is that there are neurodiversity-affirming autism researchers who actively seek input from autistic people to make sure they're researching questions the autistic community cares about and going about the research the right way. I can only hope that participatory research continues to gain popularity and crap like the study Sam discusses here becomes a thing of the past.
2:30 - OK...being an ecologist and geneticist, I foolishly thought they were looking at naturally occurring variation in mouse behavior, and found autistic-ish quirks in some. But of course lab mice are all inbred and weird, and don't HAVE much natural genetic variation! 3:50 - Yes, having done genetic association studies in trees...there's a lot of steps you need to say variant X CAUSES phenotype Y (instead of just being NEXT TO the thing that causes Y, or influencing Q which influences H which can cause Y, or just being a false positive, or whatever). A similar type of thing that really ground my gears was a study a few years back that A) decided to look at genetic associations with gay BEHAVIOR (not desires) and B) then threw in stuff about what psychiatric stuff those same genes are associated with without sufficient discussion of the social environment's effects on either. Like yeah: especially if you include people in your study who are currently 60 years old, I'm not at all surprised that the genes linked to acting on your same-gender desires include some also linked to risk taking! But don't just SAY that and not discuss WHY that might be the case! 7:50 - LOL, "impaired nest building". Extremely relevant. 9:00 - Oh. Yeah, it seems like you'd AT LEAST want to go with the more-social rats! But mice are easy to work with, so they get used in a lot of medical studies where they aren't the best choice. 13:30 - "More money for autism research than for more obscure - and more serious - brain issues" is an excellent hypothesis. We see this in research, especially medical research, all the time. A more fun example: my step-father got money to study spider and seal eyes by saying it could help develop better contact lenses. Which maybe it did...but he actually cared about the spiders and seals!
unrelated but i've been wondering for a while if you were dutch because of your accent, hearing you say gouda made me pretty certain now lol. i'm a dutch-speaking belgian :)
A fellow autistic friend sent that study to me, asking if he should be worried, and I read it over, laughed, and then responded to him pretty much exactly as you did. One drug that turns on a specific gene in a different species (which were bred to cause inactivation of that gene) is unlikely to cure autism in human beings. It might help with those autistic individuals with epilepsy, which can cause havok when uncontrolled, but yeah. No.
I love your sense of humor, makes it easier to tolerate this kind of BS research..like can't they just stop viewing autism as something that needs to be cured and use that research for actual illnesses? Tbh it's scary to think about what could be done with this kind of research if it got into the wrong hands. (Don't get me wrong, there are certain situations where I'd appreciate a drug that would make me less sensitive to external stimuli, less hyperactive or more social (and I know a lot of autistic people who are actually very social), but it's heavily routed in neuronormativity.
This is such a cool video! I got diagnosed with ADHD at 24 and just figured out the autism thing the other day on my 26th birthday, lol. But when I was 20, going into my third year of university (and what I'm realizing now was likely autistic burnout), I did work using machine learning to analyze brain scans of people with various neurological disorders. I remember that most of what I did involved the autism group, which is incredibly funny to me in hindsight. I think one of the reasons for choosing autism was, in fact, that it'd be easier to get funding for than, say, ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar, etc. I imagine it's similar with breast cancer research. We found a few statistically significant links, but nothing that seemed particularly interesting or useful. Still got a couple papers out of it, though. Would anyone be interested in reading them? I'm not sure if I can legally share my copy, but I can give out the titles.
I don't feel as though I need medical science to "fix" me, thank you medical science but no. I'm not broken and don't need "fixing". Thanks for the breakdown, Sam!
This is the only criticism on scientific research I can tolerate: you target things like validity, methodology, reliability, and statistics. Thank you!
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All these so called “autistic traits in mice” just sound like a poor lil mouse under extreme stress. As someone whose special interest is mice ( and knows a lot about them and owns a few ) , this study is simply messed up and not okay…for multiple reasons. why can’t they just let autistic people be, as well as just let mice be :(
not defending this study, but aren't autistic traits in humans also like people under extreme stress?
they get cranky over sensations they don't like, they can't handle things not going to plan, etc.
@@alficiro3238 we do not get “cranky” from stimuli we can’t handle. For me, it’s extremely excruciating - not just “stress”. I would also say to try avoid using the word “cranky” to describe the extreme overwhelm and pain , sensations may cause.
And the struggle to handle situations not going to plan is a result of the lack of cognitive flexibility ( an executive function ). Overall, autism is a neurodevelopmental disability - not just being under “ extreme stress “ , I hope this helps 🐁
@@ashmelville I did not mean to demean the experience of autistic people and realize that "cranky" is the wrong word to use.
but while autism is more complicated than just being under extreme stress, I do still find the similarities (such as increased sensitivity and loss of executive function) very interesting; it's as if autistic people are predisposed to stress like how people with depressive disorders are predisposed to -well- depression, there should be more research on this.
@@alficiro3238
As an autistic person, I have to agree with this. Especially as I have never ever had a meltdown (as far as I know, at least), but I am indeed predisposed to stress. Would be interesting to see if there is indeed a link or not.
@@Elora445 Also autistic I would like to know as well, I have two anxiety disorders. I do meltdown you would probably know they tend to be big loud draining and take a while to recover from like at least a few days.
The really really really dumb part of this is that if they poured this much time and money into supporting autistic people they wouldn't need to find a 'cure'. Everyone doesn't need to be the same, everyone just needs adequate support.
YES!!
YES! THIS! Lower-support-needs people don't even need *that*; we just need to be *allowed to exist as we are*.
💯
Perfectly said.
No cure needed for a condition that the brain is wired with.
Exactly right!
As a scientist who is 3X neurodivergent (AuDHD , bipolar II) and has been on lamotrigine (the drug used in this study) to treat my bipolar disorder, successfully, this study made me especially angry! Lamotrigine did wonders for me, but it did not cure my autism, obviously!
I have so many thoughts about this particular study!
I’ve also experienced many scientific talks about autism that make my blood boil. It’s like scientists have really no idea what autism is!
I got put on Lamotrigine for my so far drug resistant depression and anxiety, and I managed to get Steven-Johnson’s Syndrome. Yeah. Google Image that. Except I didn’t get the external rash, my connective tissues just started sloughing and bleeding. That was a fun month.
I guess my Autism (and ADHD, other D’s) won’t get cured by these genius scientists. Rats!
Oh, that's a big plot twist here.
I also take that for the longest and somehow I'm still autistic too.
I was on Lamotrigine for a while as a mood stabiliser. It seemed to work for a while... until it didn't, as with my experiences with most psych meds. It also left me more or less constantly nauseated. And no, it did not cure my autism.
How did you become a scientist? I'd love to but it's difficult to get advice on how to get into the field (you don't have to answer I just wondered)
I got a job as a lab tech at a local university last year. I can't tell you how shocked I was when I saw "autistic" on a group of mouse cages. WTF? For that reason and a hundred more, I quit at the end of my first week.
How the F can they even tell a mouse is autistic? Do they take a family history and life story of the mouse? I didn’t even get diagnosed until I was 35 as a human woman. So I doubt that anyone can tell if a mouse is autistic. They mostly don’t even know when people are. They just exclude us and call us weird.
@@JDMimeTHEFIRST I didn't stay in the job long enough to learn much about the research. But, you're right, at best they probably found a way to isolate a few "autistic traits" in the mice and went with it. Disappointing and unnecessary animal cruelty.
It occurred to me that if ABA therapy was introduced for autistic mice, it would be called, “Autism Squeaks”
Okay, this got a genuine giggle out of me 😂
Omg. If I saw the "autistic mice" behaviour in a cat, my first thought would be severe stress response and/or depression, and my second thought would be a physical condition with a lot of pain. How do those "scientists'" brains work? If they have those at all.
While watching this, I had so many conflicting thoughts and feelings:
1- You make an adorable mouse, Sam! 🐭 I love your humorous yet intellectual analysis on this creepy article.
2- I feel so sorry for all the mice they are f**king around with for these "studies." The autistic mouse model really blows. 😔
3- It's pretty depressing that so much money is being poured into finding a "cure" for autism. I don't consider autism to be a "severe psychiatric disease" but the funding for this "study" apparently does! 🤬
Thanks for taking a light-hearted approach to a topic that would otherwise be upsetting and infuriating.
". I don't consider autism to be a "severe psychiatric disease"" Is it because perhaps you're a privilege autistic person, who just faces some bullying from society for being weird, and not a severely affected person, who is a burden on their parents, needs constant assistance to even go the bathroom and such?
I couldn’t have put it better myself. 💯☮️🫶
Throwing some of my analysis and opinions to the mix, as an autistic bio scientist from a non-neuro field:
They were studying the effects of mutations in a single gene ( MYT1L ) on human neurons in cell culture and on mice. Some behavioral markers in the mice with MYT1L defects were similar to autistic traits, according to their interpretation, which is both very problematic as Sam explains and unfortunately pretty standard for this field. They never call it an "autism mouse model" or "autistic mice" in the paper itself as far as I can tell, but the media surrounding it definitely does, and the paper itself is... Suggestive in that direction. They do admit autism is much more complicated than a single mutation but they reference autism again and again when reporting their results.
Now, many papers in many different fields do some stretching of how relevant their results might be to some high-profile issue. The most common one is cancer, both because it's probably the most high profile issue in biomedical sciences, and because cancer is so complicated that you can actually make a reasonable link between cancer and your research in so many different fields. Most of the time however, such stretching of relevance is best relegated to the discussion section - not the results and definitely not the freaking title of the paper. It's irresponsible at best and a misleading inflation of significance at worst.
Another thing to note is that what was reported as a "cure" in all the crappy news sites is really not, even if this was a clinical trial on actual autistic people. What they did was temporarily reverse some of those changes to measured behavioral markers (that, again, were framed as similar to autistic traits) using an epilepsy drug. It isn't a cure. It's a temporary treatment, like basically all psychiatric drugs. People with ADHD aren't "cured" by taking stimulants, and they don't become neurotypical while under the effects of the drug.
So if people are worried someone will make an "autism-b-gone cure" based on research like this, it's highly unlikely. If anything, we're more likely to see psychiatric drugs with temporary, reversible effects, which might actually be interesting to have. The people we should be much more concerned with are the "in-utero detection" crowd that would enable misinformed expecting parents in electing to end pregnancies of potentially autistic fetuses, i.e eugenics.
Hi I was just wondering what science you do? I'm really interested in science and I'm thinking of doing genetics or neuroscience but obviously I'm worried about the curing autism stuff as I don't want any research I do to accidentally be used for that by future researchers
@@niamhs6042 I'm a molecular and cellular biologist by my degree title, but I also have substantial experience in genetics and genomics.
If you want my opinion, go for it. The more open autistic folk we have in science, the more likely it is that the scientists working on autism will see autistics as neurodiverse colleagues vs. patients with a disease. It's not very likely that something you do will be used for autism research, unless you specifically target that field, in which case you can work from the inside to change the field's perception. Most scientists, in my experience, are not nefariously targeting autistic people. They got into neuroscience, and maybe the funding they could find came from this or that foundation that "fights autism" or whatever, so that dictates the focus of their research. The problem is ignorance of what autism actually means and how our lives look, not some evil plot.
Also feel free to let me know if you're looking for more info or tips! I don't think RUclips dm's exist? So if you want feel free to message me on Reddit at u/galion1
I'm suddenly wondering if getting cats for our mental well-being was a good idea.
Thanks a lot for diving into this unpleasant topic. As an engineer in a sciencific lab, I empathize with the struggle to publish, but it doesn't alleviate the icky overall feeling of those researches, and I fully agree with your POV.
😅🤣😂
Damn, no wonder my 3 cats all love me above all others in my household 🫢
I’ve got bad news for you. You didn’t. They’ve spent countless years learning to meow to sound like human children and communicate with people (they only meow at people, they won’t even do it to each other) as well as other changes that cause emotional calmness and playfulness to domesticate humans. You have it backwards. They aren’t the pet
I love cats but they make me so itchy 😤
Love this dive into "bad science!" I'm a sociology researcher interested in the social aspects of science - of which you've identified many here. In general, norms and "schools of thought" are quite powerful as well. Once a norm has been created, say, around "autistic mice" the future scholars build on that, as you said, and don't question the fundamental assumptions at play when you say you are studying "autistic mice". I recently had to have a conversation around this with a very smart, very well-meaning colleague who wanted to study the social implications of an autism diagnosis, and her research subjects were parents of autistic children. I had to firmly remind her that she wasn't studying autism, she was studying *parents* of autistic children. It's such a norm to ignore autistic voices, that she hadn't even thought to question that aspect of her research design. I told her, basically, "It's fine to study parents of autistic children. But you can't say you are studying autism in that case - you are studying parents of autistic children. Since autism has links to genetics, they may be autistic themselves, they may not, and there's all sorts of interesting things to study in that group. But it's not 'studying autism'".
Thank you so much for educating your colleague. One of the reasons I started researching autism through RUclips was the media focus on "how hard it is to raise a child with autism" while not actually telling me what autism is. I now know that it is too complex for a soundbite, and fear mongering gets more attention. I have genuinely learned more from autistics than from clinicians.
She could study adult people who receive a late diagnosis and the effects it has on them. But that would probably skew the picture as well because a lot of us/them have high-masking autism which comes with certain traits.
I like that you talked to your colleague about the study - and that you reminded her that parents of neurodiverse children often are ND as well. So many of them don‘t know that and don‘t want to even think about that.
Hmm. That reminds me of when I was using a wheelchair, being pushed by my autistic son (who was a teenager). I did the social stuff, he did the pushing. When we went to a restaurant one time, I asked the waitress for a table for two. She completely blanked me and continued to address my son, who didn't know how to respond. As soon as she walked away I was so angry! I told my son to turn around and leave. He didn't understand what was going on but when I explained later he was angry. I made a formal complaint about the waitress' behaviour but never got a reply. Have boycotted that chain ever since. My point is that assumptions were made about both my son and me and neither were from a helpful point of view.
@@JaneAustenAteMyCat I've heard soo many people who use wheelchairs talk about how people just refuse to address them, and address replies to the questions from a wheelchair user to the none wheelchair user with them. It's really quite appalling how fucked up many peoples approach to disability is. Like if people can't get their heads round the idea that a person's legs not working well enough to support their weight doesn't affect their personhood, no wonder people just lose any sense of reality when required to interact with neurodivergent folks
Reminds me of that quote, 'Science advances one death at a time,' which sounds pretty dark, but just refers to the ned for particular people in positions of power with particular ideas have to die before new ideas get to flourish.
It's too early for me to be crying (10 til 7 am in the U.S)
But honestly, since being diagnosed autistic I am SO happy to get to know myself! My 3 y.o little boy is autistic as well, my wife severe adhd and we have another little boy on the way!
I hope so deeply our next child is ND as well. I wouldn't want them to feel alienated from the rest of us but also this:
I almost feel like neurotypicals are the ones at disadvantage. As an ND I lack the ability to filter out irrelevant information. I hear EVERYTHING, and I experience huge pendulum swings between different areas of life. Some are good, and some bad. But I get ALL of it.
I feel like NTs have blinders on that only let them experience life close to "the middle". They don't feel, see or hear anything like as strongly as I do, and therefore aren't experiencing life fully.
The problem is that the world is setup for them, not us. And it's a shame too because my out of the box thinking makes me a Rockstar to most NTs. It's the direct communication they hate me for lmao
Cheers and love and weird autistic high fives from Memphis, Sam ❤
*edited to add that your hair is very nice indeed, and as a bald person I'm quite envious 😅*
Who set up the world really?
The world needs more diverse minds to work together.
Neuro typical people need to be coached to accept the Neuro diversity in this world.
Clear rules of social gathering
No politics or group games
No acting or cheating or back stabbing
No sign language unless you are hearing impaired. "Use your words".
.....and so many.
If NT don't have any genetic problems, then they can be trained and educated more easily (if only they would like to).
Couldn't agree more! It often feels to me as though NTs aren't experiencing anything with any real passion/intensity and are just sleep-walking through life.
Well said.
@@BetheChange80 Can't we just put collars on them and keep them in kennels? It would make the training a lot easier :)
Just the description of the "model" was enough to make my eye's roll. So much trash science these days that the important and meaningful science gets hidden or dismissed due to the noise.
There is a possibility that this project was brought to life to spend the remaining budget of the institute because otherwise their funding for the coming year would be cut down. What do you do with your dumbass undergrads that are useless apart from learning things by heart? Let them cook SOMETHING maybe they'll learn something. Here...they learned how to damage mice and (this I can't explain) that no one bats an eye that their understanding of what autism is worse than your racist uncle's.
Great video, good work.
As a retired professor and scientist, I find all of your comments to be spot on, exactly correct, well deserved.
I have seen, all my life, the conflict of interest in the "publish or perish" academic requirements. As should be obvious to everyone, the quality of work has dropped to nearly zero and no one is reading any papers because they are all frantically writing. Do put on a combat helmet and flak jacket because scientists will not appreciate the truth of your analysis. Scientists pretend to be rational and even tempered because they are neither.
Keep up this important work.
It's the majority in a society, in this case neurotypical, which have the disorder when they characterize minorities as disordered.
There are disorders: the flu, a headache, excessive depression and anxiety. Treat those disorders.
There are many aspects of autism which are very positive. Those are not disorders.
Thank you.
THIS ❤️🦖
Loved all the puns! Yes, please do more videos about autism research. Much of the research bends over backwards to turn strengths into pathologies when it comes to autistic people. Often I’m reading it with my mouth agape.
Agreed, to all of that.
For sure. I read your comment here very quickly, in fact, being a "hyperlexic" autistic woman. However since I should not be understanding what you wrote, after all, since researchers have stated that the deficit of hyperlexia causes us autistics to read without understanding. So probably I randomly typed these characters without understanding.
NTs turn everything into a pathology it's silly
You could do a whole series breaking down papers from autism research! There are some real shockers out there, and your analysis is both insightful and very entertaining ✌️💕🌻
Yes I agree!
You said shockers and my brain went literal and brought up the shock therapy practice. ._.
Please do more of these. I think the research deserves a critical response. Autism Speaks is funding research into the genetics of autism and I think they also contribute to ADHD research.
Your a great advocate for autism and you put a human face on an otherwise extremely misunderstood and looked down upon nuro type.
Yes, very few people can do the critical thinking that is so needed and so well done in this video.
they do very much remind me of the behaviours my families last dog exhibited when he started suffering from intestinal discomfort that eventually turned out to be bowel cancer. Loss of interest in social interactions, compulsive licking and shivering, no longer making nest out of his bedding but just flopping down on it how it was. Poor guy was just feeling sick and in pain. He hadn't suddenly developed autism
I looked up differences between mice and rats in human behavioral research. Mice can be "mutated" easier than rats but, as you said, rats are way superior when comparing the similarities to human behaviour.
"Considering the complex and collaborative nature of human social behaviour, these species differences are highly relevant in modelling social behaviour deficits. Particularly in relation to ASD, where reductions in social behaviour and social communication are core symptoms, mice might not be the ideal model given their intrinsic lack of receptiveness to social interaction (Moy et al., 2008, 2007)."
Source: review article by Bart Ellenbroek and Jiun Youn.
They said it so simply. Yet..
'Mutant Autistic Mice' sounds like an alt rock band name or the title of a sci fi novel or maybe graphic novel. It gives a TMNT + Biker Mice from Mars vibe.
Why do people have to do this.
Why can't they just accept that everyone is different, that we all have needs, and just accommodate the needs people have, small or big....
Coming up with a "cure" is not the solution, and it makes people feel like there is something wrong with them. That they can't be different.
The world would be very boring if everyone were the same.
Maybe we can use whatever they gave to the mice to make them autistic in the first place to "cure normalness" in people? 😮😅😂
Because money, because autism has been an extremely pathologised diagnosis and the mindset of "They need to be fixed!" is still entrenched, because researchers suck.
No, I do not have a good view of either the medical industry, medical research, for how stigmatized they have made us.
👍👍 thank you for a) finding the facts here and b) finding the humour. This whole notion of "curing" neurodivergence makes me feel sick.
Thank you for shedding light on this subject through your research, empathy and common sense 👍👍!
Oh my gosh, I really shouldn’t be laughing this hard but the science nerd in me couldn’t help myself.
Yes I would love to see you tear into another, questionable at best, study. The jokes in this one really did just write themselves. 😆
Thanks for sharing, very informative & not an easy task to explain a huge study, in about 20 minutes.
Sometimes laughter can be great medicine. (And I love the ears, don’t put those away, they were a brilliant add to this post 🙌💯) ☮️
I would absolutely be here for more videos of you in various animal costumes (or not) explaining and interrogating scientific papers!
My cat must be autistic too.
He has bad social skills.
He's non verbal.
He's obsessed with this red dot.
(psst, This explains why you can't look for human psychological traits in non-human species, each species, even among mammals and even primates, is rather different)
Well duh, all cats are autistic.
@@theinnercircle5380 No, they are just sociopaths.
@@theinnercircle5380 Cats are just autistic dogs. Aren't they? :)
Yes, scientific validity is very important. And besides criticizing or appraising papers, which is already something that we really need, there is one thing that I would really really like to have: an overview over where we stand, research-wise. Something like an autism wiki. A place where all the concepts, ideas and results of autism research go, with all the appraisals and criticisms that we all can find. Linking to papers, reviews, videos. With discussions on “Talk” pages. And so on.
I know, nobody can “just do that”. This needs servers, software, maintenance, etc., and people who take care of this. I don’t know if anybody is in a position to do this or fund this. I am not, and I don’t think people here in general are able to do this. But I still wanted to put this idea ”out there”.
Also, I don’t expect that a consensus appraisal can be reached easily on any given topic. I rather expect that a variety of appraisals will be possible. But the value of having something like this is that it could be a place where we can work together towards evaluating the scientific validity of concepts, research and results. And people could then go to there to get information about the subject and understand better where research stands.
The sodium channels bit made me think immediately of drugs for hypertension. And a lot of anti-anxiety drugs are also prescribed more and more for hypertension (prazosin under the brand name of "Minipress" [which I've been prescribed for BOTH hypertension and anxiety] comes to mind). Another anxiety drug I take is also prescribed as a non-stimulant ADHD drug. I'm think ADHD like you, but also hypertension treatment.
Another comment mentioned the drug, something it was used to treat for them, and that they are also on the Autism spectrum. For me it's a 'top comment' in the comment's section, so near the top, but in case it isn't I've quoted below;
"As a scientist who is 3X neurodivergent (AuDHD , bipolar II) and has been on lamotrigine (the drug used in this study) to treat my bipolar disorder, successfully, this study made me especially angry! Lamotrigine did wonders for me, but it did not cure my autism, obviously!
I have so many thoughts about this particular study!"
I've not included their channel title/name just in case they delete their comment for personal reasons after I saw it, even though it has been up for 3 weeks now so is unlikely. I just thought I'd share in case you didn't see it before. I thought down similar routes when I heard 'sodium channels' too, of other actually treatable/manageable conditions linked with the brain that are already treated/managed with that method. There's plenty it can be good for, 'curing' Autism isn't one of them.
Yes, please do more reviews of scientific papers. I particularly like that you try to make a balanced review, addressing everything from the nonsense to the potentially useful. And yeah, it is good to have some fun while doing it.
Yeah, I stumbled upon the article as well a couple weeks back and I was so enraged when seeing this. I decided to read it anyway just so that I could know what it said.
I've been waiting since I read this ridiculous article for someone to talk about it, so thank you for doing so.
This whole thing reeks of behaviorism. I thought we already determined behavior alone is not indicative of what autism really is, so how on earth could we diagnose it in a mouse?
Thank you for a lovely video! There is just one thing I wish that would have been addressed but that I don't think was mentioned. To us, we obviously see how autism does not translate to mice, but to people who aren't as familiar with autism, I feel that there is a bit of a gap in the reasoning presented as to why this research is silly. I think it could be addressed by asking the question, "WHY is autism a thing that only applies to humans?" I think the conversation would lead into the area of the social model of disability vs. the medical model of disability, which might make the conversation a little hairy, but I think it's worth it. (For example, there are definitely cultural factors that would make someone seem more, or less, autistic. Like in the US, eye contact is unnecessarily demanded, and autistic people tend to break that social expectation, which is one of the reasons autistic people get labeled as autistic. But in Japan, eye contact is frowned upon and can seem rude and aggressive, so an autistic person who doesn't do eye contact in Japan won't be called out for this oddity, as it is not even an oddity in that environment. This conversation is impossible to translate to animals, obviously. I just think some people might need help connecting these dots.)
I read this article recently and your analysis is priceless! That, and the mouse ears! I may need to get some for myself ;) Your channel has helped me so much. Thanks for all you are doing!
Part of the issue with this paper is how it’s reported in the pop science media. They make these sweeping claims that aren’t in the paper or might be hinted at for further research. I’m not saying that the mouse model is useful for autism and ADHD, I just think part of the issue is how it’s reported to the general public.
12:42 "subject 4736 just wont stop categorising his cheeses" - amazing, nuff said.
I love the mouse ears, Sam! They're so cute! I love that you wore them for this video, too
Love this video. So well researched and presented. The ears are a bonus, don't let anyone tell you different.
Idk what to say after this video I researched for five hours so….. but I love you Sammy I can’t describe how much you help me thru different stages of my life
The mouse ears is so cute haha!
I love your channel btw, it has helped me stand my ground and demand a re-diagnosing as me, my family and friends all agree that the diagnosis i have is very wrong and harmful to my future, so thanks for giving me the knowledge about autism in girls, so i can fight for the right "label"
I think you're right that such neurological research, if done well, could potentially be beneficial in learning more about how nervous systems work and maybe treating actual severe illnesses (in the long run), but the notion of a mouse model for neurodevelopmental variance in humans--the most neurologically and socially complex species on the planet--just seems a huge stretch. While I would love to find better treatments, for instance, for depression in people on the autism spectrum--since the treatments that work for neurotypical people often don't seem to work very well, at least not for me--there's no NEED to cure autism. It would be nice to make it at least a little bit easier for people on the spectrum to maximize their many individual strengths and to help reduce those things which cause persistent suffering for autistic people--like depression and anxiety, among other things. I don't know what I'm really getting at, but I just wanted to give you kudos and try to express the ways I think you made very good points.
I've been looking into depression research indirectly -- I was looking to adopt a dog and stumbled down the very deep hole of spay/neuter research
Some of the depression research uses animal models also -- mostly rodents -- and triggers the condition via gonadectomy aka full spay/neuter -- but it looks like that model is actually good/works for certain types of depression as far as I can tell. In humans, gonadectomy/hormone deprivation can be an elective procedure, used to treat cancer, and replicated via chemical castraction (used for sexual predators, tho not legal/considered cruel now iirc) -- and depression has been found to be a side effect in humans (thou at lower rates then in rodents to my understanding). It's fucked up how they test it -- "forced swim test" where they see how they react to being forced to swim (and gonadectomized rodents don't try to swim/save themselves as much iirc). In dogs/cats, depression levels as a side effect of spay/neuter hasn't been studied as far as I can tell, but lowered activity (contributing to weight issues) has been seen, and as well as in dogs, anxiety/reactivity (which can lead to aggression/problematic behaviour) -- (ho some research is conflicting, but that seems to be due to contributing factors (socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, along with breed/size/age hugely effect dog behaviour -- in underserved areas, most dogs are intact vs nearly opposite in middle class and up neighborhoods). Thus one of reasons why some are switching to other forms of birth control (the other reasons being it's also increasing the cancer rates/bone/joint issues likely more then the reproductive issues it's reducing in dogs).
But yea, perhaps the depression reasons that are replicated via gonadectomy (and medication tested using gonadectomy) tend to different with autism? But guessing they're also researching depression in much more ways then the rodent model, I wasn't looking into overall depression research.
I´m from Germany and since I´ve been diagnosed with ADHD 1,5 years ago I watched and read all I could find about neurodiversity, espacilly about expierences from others and whenever I´m on youtube it really gets me like... I must be autistic too... like I never related so deeply to things people told about themselves. Well. And then you go to an official german homepage about autism and it´s a hole other world. Full of assumptions and stereotypes und all writen as if never an autistic person been asked how it looks and feels from the inside to be like that. All that is been discribed is the obviosly observable different - and mostly as problematic seen - behaviour that a halfblind could spot from km away. It´s interesting and horrible at the same time.
In the english-speaking neurodiverse network I´m definitly ADHD and very likely autistic too; in Germany most Psychologists even question my ADHD although it´s been officially diagnosed. I have that guess that german science leans on "facts" about autism (and ADHD) from 30 years ago and doesn´t make any move forward.
Also I think there is no "cure" for autism needed but it would be nice if there was a cure for the pain it brings with itself sometimes.
Never underestimate the deep pockets of distressed parents with abnormal children, that can't be abused as poster children.
People hate what they don’t understand.
This video is so well done! Spot on! ❤❤❤
I came for the video and stayed for the comments. Your ears and your RUclips peeps are awesome, Sam!
I don't think that any good researcher using animal models would say with any degree of certainty that the animal model reflects a human condition such as autism, schizophrenia, depression etc. That being said, animal models (I'll leave the ethics of animal research out of this answer as it is a whole topic on its own) are often the first step in finding out how the genetic mechanisms of a condition affect behavior, brain etc. I don't think it's unreasonable to model these conditions based on animals as humans are just one species of animals sharing the same basic genetic and neural machinery and the same basic principles with the machinery as other animal species because of evolution. No one (except for some clueless journalists etc.) is suggesting that animal model of autism has one-to-one relationship with human autism. However, if you can reproduce somewhat similar neural alterations to autism in mice as with humans you can potentially test medicines to see what the outcome is. This is just a first step of eliminating/selecting potential molecules that might alter autism traits. Further research is necessary and would include the use of human subjects to verify how a substance would affect autism traits.
As to whether autism should be "cured" is an another complicated question. Since humans are a social species with most humans being increbly sensitive to reading other people based on their assumptions how a proper person should act, people with autism can and will encounter a lot of exclusion, scorn and condescending amusement from the neurotypicals. You could argue that you can teach the neurotypicals for being more tolerant to autistic people but when these social behaviors are "hard-coded" to the social brain of neurotypicals, the results of these teaching are often superficial at best and result in condescending, pseudo-friendly behavior towards autistic people. Trying to change the whole society often results in superficial changes in language and behavior that makes the neurotypicals just feel better about themselves. As a result, autistic people have significantly increased risk of suicide, anxiety, depression and increased chances of feeling completely alienated from the society as a whole. Other people are hell and you can paint this hell with pretty colors to make it look more applealing but this still doesn't change the fact that that other people are still, in fact, hell.
If there was a potential medicine for reducing social anxiety, making one with autism understand social behavior of others more and generally being viewed in more positive terms instead of being viewed as that "creepy weirdo" with whom, from the perspective of neurotypicals with the tolerance training, social interaction is a chore that at best provides these people with positive self-image of being progressive and tolerant, wouldn't that medicine be worth a shot? It would reduce social anxiety, give confidence and probably reduce the risk of suicide and feelings of being alienated and disconnected from society/other people.
they had a drug that cured Jewishness also during ww2... in a chemical shower... is autism something that should be "cured"? some people think autistic people are like a different form of humanity... maybe more advanced? a lot of autistic people are clever... when i was 19 i got iq test 152 on mensa.. but i never achieved anything due to my crippling anxiety & shyness & never having enough help... i did tons of courses and passed them all and never got a career. i realised when older after being diagnosed that id been trying to pretend to be "normal" my whole life due to being bullied for being different in school & college... i think people call it masking... anyway.. now.. cos i had such trouble getting benefits & having to go thru tons of appeals with people claiming i dont deserve it cos i looked them in the eye one too many times or i recently bought a new £2 t-shirt and dont have food all over it... so i must therefore not be disabled enough.. i sometimes now feel like i cant even mask and pretend to be "normal" anymore cos now i fear if i look at people too much they might cut off my benefits.. so ive found since being diagnosed, im actually socialising even less and having an even worse life than before... and no one actually helps you... so being diagnosed hasnt helped my life at all other than getting a bit of extra money.. no one actually helps u with the things u need help in, all they want to do is tell you what to do in the things you dont want help with... like telling me to stop climbing trees.. or telling me what sh*tty job i should try to get.. or trying to force me to socialise in situations i dont want to be in... ie.. i like to do something i enjoy to do and have the possibility to socialise during that thing.. like walking... or playing computer games or something... not going specifically to a place to do nothing but socialise.. which is my idea of a boring time and totally pointless. i want to meet people with similar interests and talk about those things with people while doing them.. not sit in a room with total randoms and drink tea and do boring small talk... and now they expect me to PAY for this torture.. apparently a charity that is supposed to be helping me wants ME, the person they are supposed to be helping, to PAY for doing something i dont want to do.. drinking badly made tea... usually luke warm with scum floating on it when made by other people... im supposed to do what other people suggest all the time instead of them helping me do what i want to do.. its odd that?
👍👍I hear you, man. For what it's worth I get most of my socialising via RUclips. We don't have to feel painfully different or alone when we come together like this 👍👍
@@philurbaniak1811 and there is no awkward silences or misunderstandings (or fewer) and shyness and anxiety of being worried someone got upset etc.. what i find annoying which is a problem especially in england, but less so when i go abroad is, everyone expects you to say please & thank you like 50 times for one simple transaction.. why cant i just say it once beginning & end? i find it quite tiring & pointless.. also in england people keep apologising for everything even when they dont need to... i just walk by and they turn and say "oh sorry" & move when they werent in my way... and im supposed to waste time having some chit chat with them this whole ordeal of replying to that saying its ok or something. i never quite know what they want me to say.. and so since i got diagnosed i just dont say anything anymore.. like in other countries... and now i dont have to feel awkward but then u get that person often tutting after or whispering to another person about how rude i am or something.. like they interrupted me for no reason trying to force me into saying something and when i dont say it theyre upset and IM the rude one? its a bit like if someone u dont know gives u a gift u didnt want and then says, "where the fk is mine then??? ahole!!" and when people do actually do something bad to you, or get in ur way taking up an entire aisle of the supermarket and not moving for 5 minutes not moving when they can plainly see u.. then they dont apologise... its madness
I don't know if you've made a video on this, but shutdowns [an internalized form of meltdowns] don't really get talked about much and I think spreading awareness on them would be valuable.
I have experienced shutdowns throughout my life and didn't recognize that for what it was because I had no words for it. I just knew some days I "couldn't" anymore, and didn't want to interact, wanted to teleport back home or just disappear to give me time to recharge.
Thank you, I love how you present this topic. Holy crap! Science can sure turn a few really bad corners. I am so impressed with your ability to teach in a fun and interesting manner. Since I just turned 70, when I look back at my sense of self in the '50s & '60s and my parents' sense of me at that time - was so distorted - no one knew I was Autistic. I stutter, have a condition called (PS) poland-syndrome (which is the Doc's name who coined the condition), and my IQ & test scores were way above average, so everyone thought that being academically so capable should save me from any of life's real problems. But it didn't. Thank goodness for your generation being able to express this Truth. I Was a Mask for my entire life. I was either beaten or raped into submission. Y'all here on RUclips who know the truth about AS - have given me a better opportunity to Know Myself. And now I am gracefully aging with Agency that I never had before Neuro-Diversity started becoming understood. Yo Samdy Sam, please keep on keepin' on this work of clarifying what's BS! I love your videos.
Never too late. : ) I am also in my 70's and am finally understanding and accepting my life and myself. I am so grateful for people who are courageous enough to share their experiences.
Gotta love seeing a mouse getting an autism assessment. Do they also have to wait 4 years? Random vaguely related question: Have you come across studies that look into autism and nationality? While looking at autistic traits and preferences in an English speaking country, I can't help but wonder that quite a lot of them are 'normal' German traits. Have there been more neurodivers people in power in German history to make the society better adjusted for them? Is a larger proportion of the population autistic? Did the autistic Saxons stay and the neurotypical Saxon move to the British Islands?
Doc: Ok then Whiskers, would you say you're fixated to dates?
Autistic mouse: Yes, but they must be dried, left in an open bag and expired between 2008 and 2014.
@@sophya5796 How did you know that I have a drawer full of old opened probably expired sweets?
@@0oFlicko0 Hehuh, well I just though you might be German and therefore appreciate some silly humour 😅
The actual AQ test question nr.9 goes "I am fascinated by dates" and obviously refers to calendar dates, but a mouse would definitely prefer the edible ones. And be very fussy about them 😂
I love how much fun you had with this one and the adorable squeak at the end. Your sense of humor reminds me of me.
Your summary of scientific validity was so concise and easy to understand, and also so perfectly accurate.
Your blurpers at the end are so funny! Thank you for sharing
Loved it Sam, the research sounds like desperation rather than genuine inspirational research
I must have neurotypical mice in my house, that's why I have trouble communicating with them about moving out.
I have only just started this video and already Infeel thankful to you that youdismantle this study. Also i loooooove those mouse ears on you. You look so cute with them. And also they bring a seemnse of humour to this video which is so nice cause that people want to cure autism is so outrageous. Acceptance of autistic people by society at large and provide for spaces where there is less noise, less faking by non autistic people would be so wholesome for not only people on the spectrum but also those who arent.
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You have the best laugh, Sam! Thanks for this 🥰
What a hilarious video, thanks for sharing it! Absolutely loved all the... cheesy... puns! Also... even for the chance (/danger?) of unlocking a whole new target audience for your channel... I vote for you keeping the mouse ears. 🐭
Most scientific research is just an exercise in (a) validating the preconceptions of the researchers and (b) justifying funding. A previous editor of the BMJ said that 85% of metabolic epidemiological is 'mendacious'
I am 3 minutes in and have already heard enough to know where this one is going. But it made me think about something that I’d like to talk about.
I, as a high functioning autistic individual. Prefer to have my autism, over not. It’s part of what makes me who I am. Yes, it sucks sometimes in how it affects my every day life, but it gives me gifts of creativity, and the ability to analyze things in ways others normally wouldn’t. I have a perspective that is unique to me, and I don’t particularly want to be “cured” of that. I know that in more severe cases, it may be better to be free of autism’s burdens, but that’s a wish that I think should be left to the autistic individuals in question. Though based on my interactions with others in the same ballpark as me, our general consensus is typically that our quirks, though odd and sometimes frustrating, are awesome for us, and can sometimes even be admired by others.
This was really interesting to watch, love that us autistics have to put up with this nonsense. Thank you for making a video on this, I’m glad I know more about what is currently going on in the wonderful world of anti-autism haha
13:30 "Let's squash that. (Mouse voice:) Kill that joy."😆
This was fascinating and funny too! My son and I both have a variant of unknown significance in the ADNP genome and we both have an autism diagnosis. Love the ears! 💞
Such an interesting video - would love to see more where you review autism research and comment on it! 😊
This is by far my favourite video of yours. Witty & cutting from someone who has qualifications (that block the 'you don't know...' squad) all while looking great in mouse ears.
tbh I'm surprised they haven't tried fruit flies as they're so much easier to fk up with a fast turn around.
pls more video's explaining & attacking the really p-ss poor research that's going on these days that's being passed off as science.
Please make more of this!
OK, so as an Aspie to another Aspie, I will go strait: You have some good points but a lot of... not so good ones.
1) To be honest, mice are used as they are the best we have... here as well as in any other research: they are mammals, they are small, they breed fast, they are easy to be kept, we know a lot about them, their genes, and their behaviour / ethology. As far as we know our limitations, the research on them can bring some useful facts... problem could be with a lot of MDs in the field, who, compared to average biologist, usually don't have this in their minds plus their knowledge of scientific method is usuall weaker (as far as my experience in my part of the word reaches).
2) You are right, that mice aren't as social as we are. From my point of view, their biggest problem is, that although they are able to recognize memmeber of their group, they aren't able to recognize who exactly it is (they don't have "names"). From this point of view, rats are far better model. The model is always about what you want to answer.
3) Genetics are able to produce / create a mouse with the very same mutation of the very same gene as in some cases with people on the spectrum. With having all the things above in your mind, you can check, if there are some changes in their behaviour compared to their siblings and close relatives. At least you have an answer, if the gene can do something with changes in behaviour. Well, to be honest, I cannot, as I am bad in reading mice behaviour the same way as in humans.
4) You can have mice without any gut microbiota in controled conditons. You can "infect" them with a mixture of microbiota you want to. As there is a strong suspicion, that products of gut microbiota can affect your brain or brain of your child to be born... and this is a system, how to understand it.
5) Cell cultures and organoids cannot copy the blossomed out mind of anyone, but they can show us, what is happening inside the brain with neurons without need to look inside the head of mouse or man.
6) Of cause, everything is basic research giving ideas to applied one, trying to understand, what is happening not only in people with ASD but in every single brain. It is complicated, it can be misleading sometimes, but as I have already written: it is basic research and you need to start somewhere. In biology you also do not have these double-blinded experiments. Contrary, you have two descriped groups, who differ in as few conditions as possible... ideally only the one you study, plus you should use randomization. If you are right or not will be check by repetition of your experiment by someone else.
7) And another agreement: Click-baits are killing reporting about research. Or do you think, that people would read something like: "Scientest have proved, that some gene with an abbrevation you do not know what it is, changes behaviour in laboratory mice and by the way the same gene is muted in poeple of a certaine type of autism" ?
8) If you ever been to academia, you would find, there is a lot of people with autistic traits.... not all of them are diagnosed, and sadly, they aren't usually in leading possitions (as even science is a social thing), but they are there. In that respect, I find the claim of yours, that they haven't seen anyone on the spectrum, as the most misleading.
To sum up, research on mice and cell cultures has its place in understanding brain development including disorders connected with it including autism. Scientest and journalists reporting about its results should be carreful though not to rise any high expectations. I can imagine, that the "cure" in the future coul look like also this way: A mother will know, based on genetic screening, that several genes connected with development of ASD are mutated, so she will be recommended to alter her diet during pregnancy (or be more strict), so she lower probability of development of more serious (i.e. low-functional) ASD in her child. This would be fine with me - knowledge-based, self-decision, still no 100% guarantee.
And by the way: Nice ears.
Maybe there is more to agree than you are realizing at the moment. I think you are in the mousetrap of thinking that autism is only a disability. The cure we so urgently need is to see autism as a difference. In the end autism is a welcome and needed phenomenon that enriches the world we live in. The most important cure is acceptance and inclusion.
@@peinzen There is not a word about me thinking it is only a disability. It is a double-edged sword though, which disables you from standard social life and making you more vulnerable to those, who want to take advantage over you, as a result. All the hypersensitivity, facial blindeness, melt-downs, shutdowns, and regresssions are making you to deal with things no NT will probably ever deal with or understand. Thank you for such enrichments.
It can give you some advantages from other parts of your life. But calling it just some blessing for this is eqally dangerous, maybe more.
We are not just different. We are different in certain way and we should understand it. Acceptance without understanding is shallow, it is just a pity.
For example, if you have a man with serious autism, non-speaking, freaking out from any small change, unable to control his body with his mind and will. He can hurt people around him including his parents, what he doesn't want to do. He can hurt himself instead, what he doesn't want to do. Wouldn't it be better for him to have some solution based on our knowledge, which could help him to overcome the problems, to help him to enjoy the world with those he loves without any fear from himself? In such a case acceptance isn't enough (but still better than nothing).
Thank you for posting all these lovely videos! which have been very helpful. I have a doctor's appointment soon and I still thought I should ask you one weird question before that, because I dont think I will be asked this question and I want to somehow explain her. So, many times (mostly when I'm tired) I have a moment when I loose focus of my eyes and my eyes look away just for half of a second or so and then continue focusing by their own. I was wondering if this is common amongst people on the spectrum or maybe it happens to u too? or this could be something else
Possible that it's just an attention-related issue, but I would go to an optometrist to rule out any sort of medical issue there.
I agree with everything, BUUUUUUUUT there is absolutely nothing against animals also being autistic or having trauma or whatever other psychological characteristics. If bees can develop trauma, mice can be autistic/highly intelligent/ tend to homosexual behaviour/sensitive, whatever. We humans are very complex creatures and will show very complex symptoms, but that doesn't mean we are the only ones in the animal kingdom to present these features. Another very valid point is that of high sensitivity. As you know, the High Sensitive Person, classification coined by Dr. Elaine Aaron, is just another term for autism. Back in 1995 the poor woman didn't have any real frame of reference for her "female" autism. I read her book from that year, which was based on her nephews btw, both later in life diagnosed as autistic, and got to the conclusion that the HSP-trait is plain, good, ole, cookie-cutter autism. The thing is, she's done extensive research identifying and documenting the "trait" in over 100 species, from dogs to goldfish. So, it is a pain that they are trying to erradicate/cure autism, but it is also very plausible that animals can be autistic as well. But this is a very thought-provoking video! Thank you Sam, I adore you very much (I just disagree on this very specific point)
And flamingoes can be gay. Not relevant but just wanted to add/mini info dump. Also otters hold hands when they fall asleep so they don’t drift apart in the water. Nearly as cute as Sam’s mouse ears
@@sophiekerr8964 that's cuuute!
I watched something recently about the development of the brain from earliest fish and fish-like creatures like lampreys which showed that genetic markers for autism were present before all others, meaning these autistic markers are the earliest. I am so sorry I cannot now recall what it was. It was an autism friendly channel though. It was very scientific, very complicated. It was evolutionary biology. If I can find it again I will come back here and update.
@@tracik1277 I had also heard about the theory that autism was the main trait of the human mind and that we used to be the neurotypicals, now they won the upper hand and dominate. Fascinating.
@@byamboy Yes, power over virtue, what a way to go.
Well done! I love how you broke down the science with both facts and humor. Really, really good job! TY for your time and effort!
I absolutely LOVED this video! It was not AT ALL what I was looking for when I came to your channel, but WOW, you really had me cracking up throughout the entire thing!
I WANT MORE! I WANT MORE! I WANT MORE! 😂
More calling out bs research, more costumes, more punny jokes, and more bloopers! 😊❤
Thank you bunches for this random nugget of solid gold!❤🙏👍
This video made me want to spontaneously yell out "I LOVE YOU" so I would consider it a hit and the format worth pursuing in the future 😂
It was really fun to watch this one. Aside from being slightly anxious about what this research suggests, I laughed a lot about your jokes. Thank you. .. Also, wouldn't there be much more money in a medicine that cures ignorance? So much more potential. They should start a research about this as soon as possible.
How did the mice show autistic behavior?
They probably excelled in tech and got employed in Silicon Valley, or maybe in accounting, research, healthcare or design.
Way to go, mice! Now they can get to space, as well.
You crack me up! Love your explanation of these type of articles.
Sam, you did a great job channeling the mouse :)
Goudaaa 🐀 Gouda video, thanks for sharing your input!
Thank you for this video. You ask at the end if anyone has come across any studies they have read and thought 'WTF'...and yes, I have! I'm struggling with my recent diagnosis (well, it's been two years) and am now reading more and have thankfully found your insightful RUclips channel (thank you). But today I came across a recent research paper 'Epidemic of False Diagnoses of Autism' by David Rowland, and wondered if you'd possibly read it and please share your thoughts? I have felt very lost and began to find some self-awareness and understanding but this paper has completely confused me and I feel rather lost again. Thank you
I really want to become a research scientist and I'd love to research autism not for a cure but to try and help promote autistic people's rights and make them feel less alone (science makes me more confident in myself and I'd like to help people like me). I'd really like to research burnout as well so I can help people avoid it. But I'm really scared about the eugenics thing if people steal my research or build on it for bad things.
The fields I'm interested in are neuroscience and epigenetics (which could be used to treat cancer and things like that) but there's so much in both these fields that's directed at curing autism and I don't know if I should take the risk. But I feel like getting autistic people into autism research is super important?
These are just my thoughts at the beginning of this video
Any study allegedly about autism with the words 'mouse' and 'fecal' in the title is usually good for a giggle (and absolutely nothing else). Right until you realize that money is being spent on that nonsense rather than the stuff autistic people have been asking to be researched. Such as autistic inertia, or how different drugs impact autistic people and if there's a pattern to the hyper, hypo, and paradoxical responses we seem to experience more frequently than the general population.
Most ABA papers are _interesting_ when you look at them. There's already been a dog trainer who went over the issues with an ABA paper using ABA techniques to train problematic behaviour out of dogs (read: It was a horror story and a step by step guide of how not to train dogs. The dog trainer's conclusion? These researchers just turned the dog into a timebomb by training it to suppress its natural body language and nothing else. On top of the issues that basically all ABA papers are based around case studies of 1 or 2 participants (this one included), but I'm sure if you looked at the leading ABA journals you'd be able to find a mountain of horrifically bad papers.)
But the study that most springs to mind is one I read that tried to paint 'valuing honesty over monetary reward' (I think) - which it claimed it found autistic people were more likely to do - as a bad thing, while also being an experiment that when I read it looked more like one designed to assess risk aversion - Something about drawing balls from a jar and trying to predict if the jar had more balls of one colour or another, with rewards for getting it right. And then variants where the reward changed based on how many balls you picked out of the jar (fewer being higher reward), and the change in reward structure impacted the behaviour of the NTs in the study more than the autistic people. Which... That's a risk aversion experiment. Not whatever the hell they were trying to imply it was (which the paper painted in a _really_ weird way, seemingly trying to imply that being less susceptible to bribes is a bad thing?). Sadly can't find it right now.
i LOVE this video so much and your channel in general, it's literally helped change my life, thank you so much for all your work!!
As a mouse, and an autistic one, i can confirm that these studies are completely bunk; first place i jump to is the ethics disclosures followed by methodology, and its usually instantly clear how they reached these absurd conclusions
My fave bad example will always be any mouse studies that show tumorous mice as proof that some drug or another is bad; when in fact theyre usin a mouse species that is literally most well known for its extremely high propensity to grow tumours. Anythin not usual to that mouses lifestyle and they will probs grow tumors; even without such theres still like a one in ten chance any given mouse becomes tumorous. Literally torturin these mice for PR pics
I appreciate getting input from the autistic mouse community, it means a lot
Lol!
Another great video - really fun to watch and educational. You’ve made a complex topic very accessible.
You should release an outtake video from this video. I don't know how you got through it. Absolutely hilarious topic.
I wish they would just leave the poor mice alone. and the guinea pigs, and dogs and whatever else they think they have a right to abuse in this way. The whole thing sounds extremely suspect.
I know. I've always been against animal research for any reason whatsoever (which I realise is a controversial opinion when it comes to things like finding a cure for cancer...but so be it).
the early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Hi, I have a question about asd, not quite related to the video though. Is it true that autistic ppl do the raptor hands? I saw a bunch of tiktoks about it, but I don't think I want to base my knowledge on tikoks. I cannot find much information about it anywhere, so I'm wondering if this is an actual thing or just a myth.
Hope that it never comes to any tests on human subjects, The german researchers certainly have a lot of experience in that.
If they cured my autism then I’m not sure what would be left. I would not be the person my fiends care about and my husband loves. As a (past) scientist I also recognise research that’s mouse poo.
I've been on the medication used in this study. I was still autistic the entire time. This is ridiculous.
The good news is that there are neurodiversity-affirming autism researchers who actively seek input from autistic people to make sure they're researching questions the autistic community cares about and going about the research the right way. I can only hope that participatory research continues to gain popularity and crap like the study Sam discusses here becomes a thing of the past.
2:30 - OK...being an ecologist and geneticist, I foolishly thought they were looking at naturally occurring variation in mouse behavior, and found autistic-ish quirks in some. But of course lab mice are all inbred and weird, and don't HAVE much natural genetic variation!
3:50 - Yes, having done genetic association studies in trees...there's a lot of steps you need to say variant X CAUSES phenotype Y (instead of just being NEXT TO the thing that causes Y, or influencing Q which influences H which can cause Y, or just being a false positive, or whatever).
A similar type of thing that really ground my gears was a study a few years back that A) decided to look at genetic associations with gay BEHAVIOR (not desires) and B) then threw in stuff about what psychiatric stuff those same genes are associated with without sufficient discussion of the social environment's effects on either. Like yeah: especially if you include people in your study who are currently 60 years old, I'm not at all surprised that the genes linked to acting on your same-gender desires include some also linked to risk taking! But don't just SAY that and not discuss WHY that might be the case!
7:50 - LOL, "impaired nest building". Extremely relevant.
9:00 - Oh. Yeah, it seems like you'd AT LEAST want to go with the more-social rats! But mice are easy to work with, so they get used in a lot of medical studies where they aren't the best choice.
13:30 - "More money for autism research than for more obscure - and more serious - brain issues" is an excellent hypothesis. We see this in research, especially medical research, all the time. A more fun example: my step-father got money to study spider and seal eyes by saying it could help develop better contact lenses. Which maybe it did...but he actually cared about the spiders and seals!
“I just don’t … I just can’t … and also-
*”I don’t have the costumes.”*
🤣😂
You're so funny Sam! Thanks for educating us!
unrelated but i've been wondering for a while if you were dutch because of your accent, hearing you say gouda made me pretty certain now lol. i'm a dutch-speaking belgian :)
A fellow autistic friend sent that study to me, asking if he should be worried, and I read it over, laughed, and then responded to him pretty much exactly as you did. One drug that turns on a specific gene in a different species (which were bred to cause inactivation of that gene) is unlikely to cure autism in human beings. It might help with those autistic individuals with epilepsy, which can cause havok when uncontrolled, but yeah. No.
I love your sense of humor, makes it easier to tolerate this kind of BS research..like can't they just stop viewing autism as something that needs to be cured and use that research for actual illnesses? Tbh it's scary to think about what could be done with this kind of research if it got into the wrong hands. (Don't get me wrong, there are certain situations where I'd appreciate a drug that would make me less sensitive to external stimuli, less hyperactive or more social (and I know a lot of autistic people who are actually very social), but it's heavily routed in neuronormativity.
Well done Sam! The mouse ears just add to your analysis 😊 Mice aside, no fuzzy thinking here!
Thanks for the video! 🐭
This is such a cool video! I got diagnosed with ADHD at 24 and just figured out the autism thing the other day on my 26th birthday, lol. But when I was 20, going into my third year of university (and what I'm realizing now was likely autistic burnout), I did work using machine learning to analyze brain scans of people with various neurological disorders. I remember that most of what I did involved the autism group, which is incredibly funny to me in hindsight. I think one of the reasons for choosing autism was, in fact, that it'd be easier to get funding for than, say, ADHD, schizophrenia, bipolar, etc. I imagine it's similar with breast cancer research. We found a few statistically significant links, but nothing that seemed particularly interesting or useful. Still got a couple papers out of it, though. Would anyone be interested in reading them? I'm not sure if I can legally share my copy, but I can give out the titles.
I don't feel as though I need medical science to "fix" me, thank you medical science but no. I'm not broken and don't need "fixing".
Thanks for the breakdown, Sam!
This is the only criticism on scientific research I can tolerate: you target things like validity, methodology, reliability, and statistics. Thank you!
It would be great if they dedicated this sort of investment into accommodating autism rather than trying to get rid of it.
Now I'm wondering if the animals I get along with are also like me.
Thank you so much! You do an amazing work! ❤🎉😊