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Not paracetamol - Neanderthal?!?! (Don't tell the US president)

Phased

My social media feed just alerted me to this study from 2024 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-024-02593-7

According to this, it's not that autistic people have more Neanderthal DNA than neurotypicals just that unique brain related DNA found in Neanderthals is more common in autistic people.

The study reckons this explains and correlates with differences in social cognition and visual processing in autistic people as carry overs from the neurodiversity of early humans.

The study, as so many do, says that "more research is necessary".

So what do we think?

Another example of 2 plus 2 making 42 from eager scientists?

OK, if the evidence is good maybe that helps explain what's occurring and maybe where things come from?

And, possibly, so what??

I'm off to light the camp fire for dinner... meanwhile, thoughts anyone?

:-)

Parents

  • It seems a bit thin on evidence. It is known that East Asians have about twice as much, on average, Neanderthal introgression as Europeans. If Neanderthal genetic variants were strongly implicated in autism then a much higher incidence of autism in East Asians compared to Europeans would be expected. I do not think that this is the case.

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  • It seems a bit thin on evidence. It is known that East Asians have about twice as much, on average, Neanderthal introgression as Europeans. If Neanderthal genetic variants were strongly implicated in autism then a much higher incidence of autism in East Asians compared to Europeans would be expected. I do not think that this is the case.

Children