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/Lettuphant Feb 09 '25

A lot of autistic people have a really hard time "feeling their feelings". So many go to therapy, and the therapist spends the first X months trying to explain that they are intellectualising emotions, examining them instead of feeling them. That emotions are the things your body is doing, from the heightened heart rate to the flush of cheeks to the sting of eyes to sensation of muscles pulling your mouth unheeded into a smile.

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u/skippydi34 Feb 09 '25

But neurotypical people don't need to observe this. I know that I'm nervous the second I am. I don't think about it. I have a hard time to understand how it feels to not have this feeling.

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u/FloatingGhost Feb 09 '25

it's... unusual

the best way I can probably convey it is such:

if someone asks you "What's on your mind?", (I imagine) you'd be pretty able to answer - that's the precise thing that autism seems to inhibit. I've confused a great many people by responding "I'm not quite sure"

it's like... idk I know something is going on in my head but I'm not yet sure what it is, I'm still waiting for it to finish processing

like you're sat there staring at a computer mouse doing the hourglass thing. it's thinking, it'll finish soon probably

sorta

it's hard to explain

sometimes it's so bad that I need to rule things out, look up descriptions of emotional "symptoms" and go "hmmm I'm not angry... not worried... anxious? maybe"

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u/skippydi34 Feb 09 '25

That's why asking "How are you?" (Not the small talk how are you) isn't a good question, right? Autistic people told me that they don't know what to answer. Too unspecific, too much to process.

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u/FloatingGhost Feb 09 '25

yeah I'd agree with that assessment

it's like my brain is a mess of things happening that I can't observe unless I'm told what to look for - for example my manager at work can ask "how are you finding work?" and I can answer since I have something to narrow in on

but more general than that and I'll probably default to something noncommittal to stop the line of questioning before it gets weird

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u/KuriousKhemicals Feb 09 '25

Hahaha I suspect I might have mild ASD (getting eval soon) and I have just mentally restricted that question to certain topic areas that concern the interaction of myself and the person asking.

I think I still answer in more detail/ with sometimes more negatives than they wanted, but serves them right for asking questions that aren't actually meant to be answered. 

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u/magistrate101 Feb 09 '25

"What's new with you?" does the same thing to me.