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What conclusions do you draw? (autism and human evolution theories)

🐝 Bees 🐝 (they/them) Autism resources in bio #stoptheshock #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

I recently watched a documentary that mentioned "neanderthal minibrains" ( https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-neanderthal-minibrains-grown-dish )

which seems to confirm (partically or speculatively) a connection to an earlier theory : http://franklludwig.com/neanderthal.html

and https://newsroom.uw.edu/story/human-neanderthal-gene-variance-involved-autism

but we know neanderthals were social, at least enough to care for one another in a harsh world: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/t7T9N4X7S-0

Which even on basic reasoning would also seem to prove what we knew all along, being autistic doesn't equate to a lack of empathy in the same way that water is wet. Also it produces issues not just in tackling ableism for neurotypicals but necessitates a rethink on the normative idea of homo sapiens supremacy (on the level of species let alone race) in popular myth and culture over other (so closely related their hybrid offspring were fertile) human lineages. And presents the possibility that yes we autists are potentially "the next stage" in homosapiens evolution (as Tony Attwood  would suggest ), afterall overall we've generally been succesful enough to exist for nearly 100,000 years.
Also what does this mean for NTs if there can be "super" autists https://news.yale.edu/2017/02/27/genetic-risk-autism-spectrum-disorder-linked-evolutionary-brain-benefit (those on the spectrum with primarily benefits from this neurodivergence, that remain invisibly autistic to the NT eye since we ar eonly dagnosesd when "there is something wrong" and they can class us as having a "disorder") does this impy that intellectual disability is a seperate thing that also shows up on an otherwise NT spectrum?

As a lot of autism research is focussed on genetics perhaps it is time we started to conduct our own research. Until then what are your thoughts after reading these findings?

  • Fun fact!

    "Perhaps the most surprising fact was evidence of interbreeding that has left traces of DNA in living humans today. Many Europeans and Asians have between 1% and 4% Neanderthal DNA while African people south of the Sahara have almost zero. Ironically, with a current world population of about 8 billion people, this means that there has never been more Neanderthal DNA on Earth."

    www.ucl.ac.uk/.../opinion-neanderthals-died-out-40000-years-ago-there-has-never-been-more-their-dna-earth

  • Interesting!  Anecdotally, I have more Neanderthal DNA than 90% of 23&Me customers.

  • in reply to 🐝 Bees 🐝 (they/them) Autism resources in bio #stoptheshock #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

    Well, I saw a youngish man last week, he fortuitously had a shaven head. He had unusually well developed brow ridges, in profile, his forehead was definitely sloped much more than average, and when he turned away, he had the makings of an 'occipital bun'. A neat triad of Neanderthal features! Of course they were extremely 'toned down', but still, having all three in one person was quite startling.

  • in reply to Martin

    That is fascinating, as a side topic I appreciate you added the information about other genetic cross over of our common ancestors. Regardless we are hybrids as modern humans still, and it's interesting to think the mix of what we think makes homo sapiens itself isn't just homosapiens either when you take into account past admixture. There is so much transition in evolution it can be difficult to tell where one species really ends and another begins when the relationships are still at those close levels.
    ie. we did the human equivalent of wolf and dog coming from a common ancestor, modern wolf meets dog and makes wolf dog, but then turns out most "true" wolves have a bit of dog in them too due to the ancient cross breeding when those linages were still diverging in the ice ages. We are more comparable to the kind of species separation with neanderthals as wolves are to dogs rather than to lions and tigers or horses and donkeys which do not produce fertile offspring.
    Where neanderthals are concerned it makes me wonder where the line is drawn not just scientifically but socially as they showed just as much intellectual advancement as homo sapiens, it's undeniable chimps and other extant great apes are distant human cousins, but perhaps neanderthals rather than being a "near human cousin" should simply be acknowleged as human also.

  • in reply to 🐝 Bees 🐝 (they/them) Autism resources in bio #stoptheshock #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs

    The link said that the 'hypervariable region of DNA' dates back to the ancestors of Homo Sapiens, but was not found in the Neanderthal genome, so hybridisation would only have led to a transfer to Neanderthals, not the other way round. The whole field of genetic interactions between human sub-species is becoming more and more complex. We now know that early Neanderthals had Y chromosomes similar to those of Denisovans, but later Neanderthals had Y chromosomes most similar to those of early modern humans. Which suggests an early hybridisation event between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens with genetic transfer from early modern humans into the whole Neanderthal population, resulting in the complete replacement of a whole chromosome..

  • in reply to Martin
    Martin said:
    The above link is saying that Homo Sapiens has a region of DNA that is susceptible to duplication and deletion events linked to autism, that does not exist in the Neanderthal genome. This is diametrically opposite to the other links, which connect introgressed Neanderthal DNA sequences to autism. So it looks like the jury is out, or at least hung, on that question.

    Interesting. Though I do not think they are necessarily opposed since both things can be true and happening simultaneously in a homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis hybrid* (if it can happen in the parent it can happen in the child).
    Which would seem to hold some weight as so far autism hasn't been able to be linked definitively to a single causal gene but to a number of different genes and factors that may be also be related to the activation of other genes that may have otherwise been dormant.

    *which is really what we are, there aren't many populations of "original recipe" homo sapiens (completely sans neanderthal DNA) around.


    (editted too many typos in first reply and spam filter ate it so this is a duplicate)

  • https://newsroom.uw.edu/story/human-neanderthal-gene-variance-involved-autism

    The above link is saying that Homo Sapiens has a region of DNA that is susceptible to duplication and deletion events linked to autism, that does not exist in the Neanderthal genome. This is diametrically opposite to the other links, which connect introgressed Neanderthal DNA sequences to autism. So it looks like the jury is out, or at least hung, on that question.

    There is some evidence of different genetic origins for autism with intellectual disability and autism without intellectual disability, but the research is not definite, as yet.