'People with autism have stronger connections between brain cells'

The article seems weird. Neither the EEG or fMRI studies measure activity between "brain cells". Seems like the reporter doesn't have good enough scientific training and is jumping to conclusions from indirect measures.

I actually suggested that to my psychiatrist. But he said he couldn't take all the medication that he prescribes and even if he did his experience and reaction wouldn't be the same as the next person.

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I still say medicate NTs so that they know what it's like not to get social communication, and to feel anxious and alienated all the time.

Right! The eternal focus on a medication that works for all is quite tiring...

Exactly my own feelings.

For anyone who's interested, here's the full text of the original research paper (I noticed immediately that the news article doesn't cite any sources, as they so often don't!)

From the perspective of my own personal experience, I don't find the overall gist of the finding particularly surprising. I experience plenty of perseveration in my thoughts and habits, and, as far as I'm aware, this is an aspect of autism that's nothing new to clinicians either, and is often mentioned in descriptions of autism.

The focus on fixing us and "finding better drugs" is, of course, pretty typical and does leave a rather nasty taste in my mouth (though that's no reason that such things shouldn't be posted, of course!).  If the research is found to be significant then it seems to me that it would be far more beneficial to autistic people to ask whether it indicates anything about how best to present information, design environments, and/or structure activities so that they are more effective and less anxiety inducing for us - that is, as strategies for society in general, not just as "treatments".

I like that about the dent. Because it is a dent on the inside and a big one that sticks out.

That is a nice way of describing it. I wake up literally reliving the moment and the feeling hasn't changed. Bot like a moutning process where you go through all the steps till you're 'done'. Nooo, right back to the original feeling and I get stuck in a loop.

Very strange because rationally I can completely justify why I took the turn/ decision at the time, but it seems completely unprocessed. If that makes any sense. 

The feeling is crap though and I lie awake and can't shake it off.

It's usually the life-changing decisions I have taken in my life and wanted to be different but couldn't do different. For lots of valid reasons.

Blank said:

I do know what you mean though. I've got the same. Some even wake me up at night and I relive the experience

I do that all the time.  Even small things haunt me in my sleep.  It's like you get a tiny dent in your car from a stone thrown up as you're driving.  The car still looks the same.  But you know the dent is there.  And you focus on it.  It's the only thing you see every time you go to the car.  And the car is changed - even devalued - because of it. Even though no one else even notices the dent, because it's so tiny, and the car isn't theirs.

I thought that was more related to the ASD and another way of processing emotions and I don't think the article meant that. 

I do know what you mean though. I've got the same. Some even wake me up at night and I relive the experience

I thought that was more related to having trouble processing emotions.

I know past memories are long term while i feel this article is talking more about short term memories related to conversation and tasks.

Im going off on a tangent here as i quite often do....but like you say its exploring the branches of the tree...

Could it also explain why (for me as self-identified ASC) i get incredibly nostalgic? Why i cant let go of some things from the past? Why, when someone talks about something from the past they talk as if it happened a long time ago but for me its still clear, vivid, and feels like yesterday?

Oh yes! I miss REM too. Have been listening to 'Fall on me' for weeks now.

Definitely it has benefits.  Zoning out with inconsequential stuff and focusing on what's important.  Vital with stuff like writing, coding, music, art.  This news feature, too, makes that 'healthy' distinction.  I'm pretty certain Bill Gates is on the spectrum, and I'm sure it helped him to get where he is.  Zuckerberg too, probably.  I'm sure Mozart was there.  And both Gary Numan and Paddy Considine have publicly stated that their Asperger's has helped them with their chosen careers.  Chris Packham, too.

During my teens, I really listened to no one except Neil Diamond.  Every week, after I started work, I'd go to the record shop and get another of his LPs, and no one else's.  In the end, the guy there greeted me one day with 'Here comes Neil Diamond's number one fan.'  That embarrassed me, and I stopped going there.  Then it was Mike Oldfield.  And then Wings.  They were pretty much all I listened to until my late 20s.

This is an interesting read - but surely our cognitive tendency to sych and hold on to things has positive benefits too? I was reading another research study this morning and got fed up with NT brains being described as 'healthy brains'. I think all research papers contrasting ASD/NT should be written from a neutral perspective avoiding language implying being autistic is inherently 'unhealthy'. 

U2's 'With or Without You' and 'Where The Streets Have No Name' are two songs that get me that way.  I play the opening of the latter and the final riff of the former repeatedly - sometimes without bothering with the rest of the song.  Something about Edge's guitar playing just hooks into me.  It's quite a distinctive style.  Not really grandiose and flamboyant, but quite simple and chiming.  Similarly with Peter Buck in REM (miss them!)

The music thing is so familiar to me - in the car I will replay one song on a CD over and over again for a few weeks before shifting into something else. I like certain sections of songs too. I knew someone who wore out several vinyl records of The Sound of Music - she had Down Syndrome but I now wonder if she was autistic too. Another man I worked with played a few lines of a Barclay James Harvest song over and over again: "we will survive beyond the grave and while we sleep we will be saved". I remember puzzling over what he was trying to communicate as he never explained his fascination for this lyric. 

Another thing is music.  As a younger man, and essentially throughout life, I used to be really infuriating with music.  I'd keep stopping and rewinding a particular section - a guitar riff or drum solo - and play it over and over.  Or I'd put a song on, play a bit of it, then put something else on, then something else - never getting the whole way through.  I used to work in a shop that sold stereo equipment, and I'd pre-record tapes of my favourite music and just play them all day until someone else would say 'Haven't we heard this enough already?'  I get stuck on particular bands or singers (or authors) and will listen to (or read) nothing else.  I don't like getting used to new music or literary genres because I like to stay with what I know.  It takes a long time to move on to something different.

Working with autistic people has made me recognise a lot of my own habits and routines.  We have people who will simply play the same piece of music over and over for hours on end - and keep going back to favourite parts before the whole thing has finished.  I'm very much like that, at a different level.

Although that is also an issue, and a big one, I meant this:

I get stuck on something that I need to know more about (something triggers my interest and I NEED to examine), and that little thing keeps on jumping up and down like a pingpong ball. And it won't stop.

Exactly! Hahaha! I get stuck because I want to know every single leaf, nerve, detail because something the other person said triggered my interest and it needs to be examined.

Which often causes conversations to spin out of control.