r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Feb 08 '25

Neuroscience Specific neurons that secrete oxytocin in the brain are disrupted in a mouse model of autism, neuroscientists have found. Stimulating these neurons restored social behaviors in these mice. These findings could help to develop new ways to treat autism.

https://www.riken.jp/en/news_pubs/research_news/rr/20250207_1/index.html
6.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

367 comments sorted by

View all comments

134

u/bigasssuperstar Feb 08 '25

Scientists' presumptions that what looks like autism in their judgment of mouse behaviour is the same thing as what they think looks like autism in human behaviour is still stuck in the idea that what makes humans autistic can be understood from analysis of behaviour by non-autistic people.

IOW, they think they understand human autism; they think mouse autism is that, too; they think helping mouse autism will help autistic humans. But I don't believe they understand human autism at the start of that chain.

I don't question the methods they're using to test their hypotheses, but this is so many steps removed from autistic adults and what they say about their experience of the world that I don't trust it to be applicable to human autism.

39

u/PlumSome3101 Feb 08 '25

Thank you for writing this. My understanding is that autistic people do not exhibit social deficits when interacting with each other. In the same way that non autistic people exhibit social deficits when interacting with a group that is predominantly autistic, autistic people have difficulty with social interactions that are not geared toward their brain type, not difficulty in general. 

It reminds me of the study that was done showing that autistic people are less likely to engage in a situation that puts others at a disadvantage. The non autistic researchers concluded that was a fault rather than looking at it as a strength. 

That said I've (diagnosed autistic) always felt like I didn't experience oxytocin in the same way as others. However just because I don't feel like oxytocin works the same for me doesn't mean the way I bond or interact socially is wrong. It's just different. 

53

u/gerryflap Feb 08 '25

As a diagnosed autisc person, I wouldn't necessarily say that "autistic people don't exhibit social deficits when interacting with each other". Personally I can get along better with some autistic people, but can also get way more annoyed by some autistic people than by neurotipical people. I notice that I notice missing social behaviours that I've trained into myself more in other autistic people. This makes me struggle to interact with them since the same mechanism that trained me also tries desperately to train them. 

Additionally I'm also quite argumentative, like many other autistic people (I'm working on it). This is fine when I agree with other autistic people, but it can in some cases also lead to way more conflict than I usually have with neurotipical people. Personally I'm not so sure that I overall get along better with autistic people than neurotipical people. At work I have a lot of autistic people like me, which makes communication easier. But I've also experienced the other way around plenty of times, when our autistic traits repelled eachother like magnetic poles.

7

u/Solwake- Feb 09 '25

Yes, exactly. Autistic people are also social individuals who are still responsible for their own actions and choices, i.e. autistic people can be assholes too. If what we call autism were instead the population norm rather than a minority, there would still be "good people", "bad people", "annoying people", etc. within whatever social norms would be established in that alternate reality.