Published on 12, July, 2020
Suppose you have the funding and technical skills to carry out autism research (e.g., questionnaires, qualitative interviews, MRI, EEG, behavioural experiments, virtual reality, etc). What kind of research question would you like to ask? What autism question do you think is still not well known, and what would be your solution to solving it, or extend current knowledge?
Brain scans revealing the wires in a NT and AT brain. Then again brain scans of both people under many different doses of LSD or similar. To see how the wires move and if we can find a place where we can almost have the same wiring. Just for a little while. And I mean both NT ans AT take LSD.
I find brain scans interesting but wonder whether what they'd be seeing would be cause or effect (e.g. the effects on the brain of long term meditation or lifestyle choices rather than original wiring). Also how the process of being scanned might affect the results. Plus how fleeting but possibly intense emotions might impinge. e.g. if my brain were scanned at a stressful time in my life or, say, after an argument, it might look very different. But I'd presumably still be autistic.
Is there anything that shows the structure of an autistic brain to be different? I remember seeing Temple Grandin's scans in one of her books and she highlighted the differences. But i think she went on to say that for most there is no visible difference. Perhaps the scanning techniques aren't yet sophisticated enough or perhaps there generally isn't a difference.
i also wonder whether any differences would be highlighted depending upon differences within the autism spectrum. Sort of my autism differs from your autism so how does that show? And what might it mean? Might it mean that there are actually a host of different unnamed diagnoses all currently hiding under the umbrella term "ASD"? Or that the ASD label itself is under question?
I did actually have a brain scan a number of years ago to check for aneurysms. I wonder whether I could go back and ask for a copy to check for differences. The wires that were firing then might just have depended upon the factors on the day, but maybe I have extra large amygdalae. I've often thought about that.
Why LSD specifically though?