Researchers from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies may have just found a mechanism in the brain that leads to autism or schizophrenia.
The research focused on a specific brain cell, the parvalbumin-positive interneurons, and a specific receptor on it known as mGluR5, two components of the brain tied to development and neural disorders.
Parvalbumin-positive (PV) interneurons are inhibitory brain cells, meaning they act on other neurons to keep them from firing. They’re thought to be critical in the brain, especially for certain kinds of memory and brain development in general—as when signaling from these cells was disrupted during development during a prior study, the brain’s networks didn’t form correctly.
Anyone out in the field who has dealt with schizophrenics would tell you not all of them are autistic, and how does this explain people with drug induced psychosis? FACT: smoke enough meth, you’ll turn schizo! It doesn’t matter your genes, or are you telling me they were likely to become schizo already and that autism is a pre-cursor to meth use?
Furthermore, many people with aspergers would argue it is neuro-diversity and not necessarily condition. A lot of past and present high ranking scientists can be argued to be somewhere on the autistic spectrum. A mutation isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it is how evolution happens. With every positive mutation there is also a negative aspect to it.
It is interesting though that this mechanism can lead to a larger brain overall, considering people with aspergers have on average brains of above average size.