Suicide Mortality in Autistics

 

No surprise, a Taiwan study found higher rates of suicide in autistics vs non-autistics. #MentalHealth

"autistic individuals had increased risks of all-cause mortality, natural-cause mortality, and suicide mortality compared with non-autistic individuals. Furthermore, autistic males were more likely to die by suicide, and autistic females were more likely to die of accident compared with the non-autistic individuals."

Trait Anxiety vs State Anxiety

Trait anxiety represents a person's general predisposition to experience anxiety, while state anxiety refers to the temporary and situational experience of anxiety in response to specific events or circumstances.

MBNCA Connectome Dataset

 

Researchers at the University of Melbourne have created a dataset that maps connectivity in 40,000 brains. The dataset, called the Melbourne Brain Network Connectivity Atlas (MBNCA) includes data on the structure and function of the brain, as well as information on the participants' demographics and health. The data in the MBNCA dataset comes from a variety of sources, including brain scans, genetic data, and behavioral data.

The MBNCA includes data from over 1,000 autistic individuals; making it one of the largest datasets of its kind. The MBNCA is freely available to researchers and may be a good resource to to study autistic brains to identify potential biomarkers and gain other insights.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.03.10.532036v1

Schwartzman 2023: suicidal behaviors in autistic adolescents

No surprise that suicide ideation and NSSI is higher in autistics!

Key Takeaways

• Early adolescent autistics (total sample 239, 138 autistic) at higher risk for suicidal ideation and NSSI (non suicidal self-injurious behaviors) compared to non-autistics.
• 20% autistics reported suicide ideation on self-report questionnaires but not to a study psychiatrist (via the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale)
• No sex based differences seen. 

Questions that arise after reading. 

• What are the underlying factors that contribute to the higher risk of suicidal thoughts / behaviors and NSSI in autistic early adolescents? 
• How can clinicians improve their ability to detect these behaviors given the discrepancies between self-report and clinician-rated measures? 
• What interventions or treatments are effective in reducing the risk of these behaviors in autistic youth? 
• How can parents, caregivers, and educators better support autistic youth who may be at risk ? 
• What are the long-term outcomes for autistic youth with suicidal thoughts/behaviors and NSSI?

References
Schwartzman JM, Muscatello R, Corbett BA. Assessing Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors and Nonsuicidal Self-Injury in Autistic and Non-Autistic Early Adolescents Using the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 53.2 (2023): 559-570. doi:10.1177/136236132311621. PMID 30938385

Media Mention

Media Mention On twitter. 

Thank you for the kind words. 

I hope I do indeed get to "redefine" autism research

 

McGlade et al 2023: Effectiveness of Early Intervention Therapies

My take: If early childhood therapy was so "effective", then the thousands of kids who have had massive amounts of therapy all through childhood (starting with early intervention) would have "RECOVERED" may times over. Why are my challenges still significant - ie: all that therapy did not make a dent. Currently there is no such thing as gold-standard childhood therapy. Most autism therapy is hit-or-miss, at any age. Its just $$$$ spent on trial and error. Lots of careers and promotions. 

Recently there was a twitter post pointing out that since were were no readily available "statistics" (referring to it as a "cool autism fact")  showing numbers of the more significantly impacted adult autistics meant that numbers of this group must be overstated. Others in the thread  questioned if adult autistics who did not not speak, even existed, since that autistic posting had learned to speak at age 3. This an irresponsible statement and an erasure of the huge number of non-speaking or minimal verbal adults who need to be part of the autism solutions. 

Onto the paper. 

=======

Key Takeaways from paper. 

• Limited evidence  to recommend very early interventions for infants and toddlers with autism.
• Limited impact of early intervention for at-risk infants/toddlers (by age 3. 
• No significant treatment effects for autism symptoms, cognitive outcomes, receptive/expressive language. Even neurocognitive outcomes (EEG and eye tracking) were inconsistent. 

• Gold-standard early intervention is yet to be developed.  Future treatment will need to include novel and individualized intervention targets alongside the targeting of parental responsiveness.

Questions that arise. 

• What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and policy related to early intervention for autism?
• What are the long-term outcomes of very early interventions for infants and toddlers with autism beyond age 3 years?
• What are the ethical considerations related to intervening in infants and toddlers at increased likelihood of autism dx, and how can these be addressed in future research and practice?

McGlade, A., Whittingham, K., Barfoot, J., Taylor, L., & Boyd, R. N. (2023). Efficacy of very early interventions on neurodevelopmental outcomes for infants and toddlers at increased likelihood of or diagnosed with autism: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Autism Research, 16(4), 698-710. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2924

Neurexins and Autism

Neurexins had come up in my Cell Neuroscience course this semester. Connection to Autism. But of course!!

Neurexins are a family of proteins that play important roles in synaptic function. They are involved in the formation, maintenance, and plasticity of synapses, which are the junctions between neurons that allow them to communicate with each other. Mutations in neurexin genes have been linked to a number of neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism.

A few reasons why neurexin genes might be associated with autism.

• disrupt in function of synapses (& communication between neurons), which could contribute to the autistic social and communication challenges
• disruption in brain development as neurexin genes expressed early in brain development, and play important roles in the formation of neural circuits.
• impact on function of other genes as they interact with a number of other proteins.

More research is needed to understand the exact mechanisms by which mutations in neurexin genes mutations contribute to autism.

Haas Scholars Cohort

 This day last year. Hanging with my Haas Scholars Cohort @UC Berkeleu

A Highly Sensitive Person

A Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) 

"Sensitivity is a heightened 'ability to .... to one’s environment'"

"I often complain about sounds, smells, or tastes that don’t seem to bother those around me..

Does that sound like Deja vu for the sensory overstimulated autistic?  

Read more in this Greater Good Science Center article.

One big vagary

Vagaries ubiquitous in autism.
Nothing standard, fractured light in a prism.
Can we conclude then, so far…..
… no evidence in any evidence really
….no clues. What’s going on in this gallery.
inexplicable me. I continue to be one big vagary.

27 Genetic Variants Linked to ADHD

 https://neurosciencenews.com/genetics-adhd-22476/

"imbalance in dopamine in the brains of people with ADHD is partly attributable to genetic risk factors"

"7,300 common genetic variants that increase the risk of ADHD. It is particularly interesting that the vast majority of these variants—84-98 percent—also have an influence on other mental disorders, e.g. autism, depression and schizophrenia"

Comorbidity of ADHD puts you at higher risk for Mental Health

This article on ADHD talks about research from Bath University in the UK. 

Essentially it says

• Mental health risk higher in ADHD alone > Mental Health risk in Autism alone
• The risk is higher when there are co-morbidities (ie: Autism+ADHD)

Research confirms what many us have already felt and known about comorbidity of Autism+ADHD. The net effect is not a simple sum, but exponential. 

What makes me sad is for the most part stimulant meds seem to work ADHD like they are supposed to. But when it comes to autism+ADHD, the same meds are still a wild guess and most don't work in autism like they do in the non-autism population with paradoxical effects.

Hope for 2023

Hope for an awesome 2023

I wonder what 2023 will bring?
In the Possibility of Me.

Dare I hope from others
....Surrounded by folks who are patient, encouraging & empathic towards my disability
... Make kind friends outside the classroom


Slow purposeful strides, an elephant I want to be.
... Relish learning and knowledge coupled with endless curiosity
... Use Advocacy & Research to add more pebbles that widen ripples in the pond of change.
... Giant leaps on the journey to emotional equanimity (mood continues to be tough nut)
... Learn to better manage & cope with the vagaries of my unpredictable disability.

The Myth of the Autism Expert

 

Environment and Autism

Participated in an NIEHS session today which looks at  role of environment in autism. Interesting discussion.

 https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/supported/health/autism/index.cfm

RPP - Participating in Research.

Another First for me at Cal - Being a participant in the research that is going on at Cal. 

Many of my psychology courses have RPP (Research Participation Program) credit but I've usually ended up doing the alternative assignment for the credit instead. Always been disappointed about this as I'm a psych student wanting to do my own research - so I would like to experience both sides. I can't believe with the enormous amount of research being done at Cal, there is no study that I can be involved in as a participant and which matches my profile. 

When I investigated before, it seemed like many were time-bound (I need extra time) or needed you to get into a fMRI machine while doing an activity (I need to be sedated before I agree to anything like that) or the participation time was super long (couple of hours) or required social skills such as talking or lot of fine motor skills.

Finally got my first short at research participation at the Hass XLab Social Science Experiment Lab at for my business course UGBA 105 Leading People at Hass Business School. It was just 20 mins long so ideal. Each half-hour of RPP is 0.5 credits and I need 5 credits. The GSI for the UGBA course, Ignacio, was happy to hear that I got some credits in and was telling me that I need to do a paper only any remaining credits - its a page of critical analysis of an Org Behavior article for each 0.5 RPP. 

Perhaps my psychological profile means I am left out of many studies by default. This sem, I missed the deadline for the pre-screen survey over the confusion of having to log into two different labs. Maybe that's why some studies are showing in the system for me to participate in.  Hmmmm...... did my disability cause the system to exclude me from studies?

Will have to try to be a participant in the research at the Psych Labs as well. After all, I'm a Psychology major. I need to complete  RPP credits for my current psych course as well.

The Making of a Research Paper - Dopamine

Your teacher springs a research paper on you. What do you do? This is the Language course but the research topic was to be science-related. I could hear the virtual sighs of my classmates. Not everyone is a fan of science!!!

Choosing a research topic is probably the hardest thing in starting a research paper. There are just so many topics - the environment, the medical sciences, space.... Where do you start and where do you end? Your paper demands a tight thesis statement, especially if it is limited to 2400 words.

The process was interesting though. Lessons on plagiarism, and correct formatting of cited works. Putting citations in the correct MLA format just got a lot easier with sites like easybib.com. Put in all the information about your source and voila, out comes the nicely formatted output with all the italics and commas in place. It is not just a case of citing sources at the end but correcting referencing them during the course of your paper.

There were lessons on our interests and motivations, writing the thesis statement and outline. Our initial draft had to be turned into turnitin.com (checks for plagiarism) before it was submitted to the teacher for grading. And the best part was that if you got above 90 % in the first draft, you did not have to do a final draft and got full credit. 

So here's my research paper on the neurotransmitter Dopamine

Link to Paper

- Hari Srinivasan

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Vitamins - Research Paper

My research paper for school was on the topic Vitamins.

Vitamins are an important aspect of our nutrition. Yet, not all people are able to handle vitamins with ease. Some on the ASD spectrum for example have the hardest time tolerating the all-important B6 (but that's beyond the scope of this simple paper)

Here's my research paper link