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
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u/VampireFrown Feb 09 '25

It's a common misconception that autism somehow means you feel less.

It's certainly possible, and is present in some autistic people, but it's certainly not characteristic of it.

I'm autistic (diagnosed), and I feel very intense emotions of all flavour. If anything, sometimes too intense. And, from rather extensive research and an unusually large autistic social network in real life, that actually looks to be the norm.

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u/LittleEggThings Feb 09 '25

For my wife who has autism, she describes it as a delayed processing of her feelings. She knows she feels something, but has a really hard time describing what she’s feeling even if the feeling is intense.

For example, if someone says something that upsets her, it can feel really off for a while and it can be anywhere from an hour to days afterwards that it just hits and she realizes she was angry at the time because the person said xyz.

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u/ParentPostLacksWang Feb 09 '25

That sounds like Alexithymia. Common in autism, yup, I find it quite difficult to deal with, especially in the context of therapy. The question “how do you feel?” is absolutely crushingly difficult to answer, because overwhelmingly my answer is going to be how I physically feel, the physical symptoms of my emotional state will be in there somewhere.

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u/caelenvasius Feb 09 '25

I’m AuDHD. One of the most difficult questions my psychologist routinely asks me is “how is that state of X, on a scale of 1–10?” I’ve never had an answer, I can’t answer that, as for one there is no context for what 1 and 10 are so how can I know where I am on the scale, but also I’ve mentioned that I have an incredibly difficult time answering questions about how I feel. I can look back and see long term trends, but only because there is some distance from them and I’ve had time to process that. How am I feeling right now though? Nearly impossible for me to answer.

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u/SylvieSuccubus Feb 09 '25

I’m so bad at things like the 10pt pain scale that my wife and I had to come up with a functional pain scale, because she’s a former massage therapist who specialized in rehab and I’ve got a jacked up back. 1 is no pain, 2 is some pain but it’s fine, 3 is STOP NOW. That’s about all I can effectively categorize.

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u/iiztrollin Feb 09 '25

That sounds like me there's no gradual limit it's im fine, STOP NOW! The worst is sherp pain chronic dull pain meh but those shap stabs get me.

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u/kelthuz6 Feb 09 '25

Considering you described this in a way I couldn't...

Did you ever find a way to work with this or improve your ability to recognise your emotions or work through them?