tremendously interested, for many reasons - general knowledge, personal empathy, and for many friends and family.
Is there any good, reliable source of information on the treatment described? If it started in 2008, I'm surprised I have not seen it mentioned more recently. Are results as reliably dramatic as described?
Many thanks for joining the discussion - much appreciated :-)
My fathers newest book - Switched On - is all about TMS and his experience. The research is being led by Alvero Pascual-Leone at Harvard medical, he's got a lot of material published.
How it pertains to autism is very new, I'm not sure what the team has published yet. The finding that I thought was most significant is that TMS provides an instrumental test for autism - although there's a ways to go before it becomes the means of diagnosis. An autistic person has measurably different neuroplasticity than a non autistic person, this low level biological distinction has the potential to take subjectivity out of diagnosis. And it is a big step towards a low level understanding of what autism is, how it can pan out to be a gift or a disability (not mutually exclusive), and how the challenges many autistic people face work on a fundamental level.
"And it is a big step towards a low level understanding of what autism is, how it can pan out to be a gift or a disability (not mutually exclusive), and how the challenges many autistic people face work on a fundamental level."
Overall, that's a great comment. I really like most autistic people (my wife and son included). I would never consider this procedure for my son because I don't believe it would make him a better person (but the choice is ultimately his).
One minor point, I would like you tocondider the way you talk about the challenges faced by autistic people. Yes, I live with it frequently. However, it is much better to talk about the challenge in the "interface" between autistic and non autistic people. Why? Because the language you choose can create a victim mentality as it implies the challenge isn't a 2 way street. Let me put it another way, I have been the victim of an autistic boss who was a sociopath - until I recognised (and had it confirmed that he was autistic). Then, I understood that he had almost no empathy. The point is that there is a challenge from both sides.
That they found such a difference in neuroplasticity is fascinating. I wonder how this applies to the higher functioning end of the Autism spectrum. I have spent a lot of time with many different people diagnosed with Aspergers or falling somewhere on the spectrum. Some seemed to have full on autistic traits while others seemed just like your average person, other than their crazy intelligence. There were many shades of gray. I guess that just shows the lack of understanding we still have on what actually is going on in the brain. It's great to hear about this kind of progress.
In the article your father only talks about the sensing other peoples emotions part of autism. Is TMS something that interacts with autism on some lowest level (neuroplasticity perhaps) or does it specifically target empathy?
I ask because many other aspects of autism can be much more inhibitive such as hypersensitivity (sensitivity to loud sounds, bright lights, crowded places) and learning disabilities (sometimes seemingly taken by other parts of the brain in the savant cases).
I get that an article about emotions does well in the NYT, but I think that if TMS would 'cure' autism on a lower level, that could really be world changing.
Any good research Uni's psych department will have some TMS studies going on over the course of a year. You'll probably have to do a repetitive task and they probably won't be doing any diagnostics (for that you're way better off with a FMRI or EEG study, where they're often happy to share the data with you), but if you're just curious about the experience you can probably get paid a pittance to try it out.
i had an experience in 2012 that was very similar to what you describe - it was like something was switched on and suddenly i was sensing other people's emotions.
Does the TMS treatment affect autistic symptoms other than emotional blindness? I've taught myself to read people pretty well, but things like hypersensitivity and hyperfocus are still significant issues for me.
For me, the strongest effect was after one particular region (they tested many), in this TMS study they were targeting 1cm^3 of the brain at a time. The effect that was most pronounced for me was a greatly enhanced sense of sound after one of the regions was targeted. I'm already an auditory thinker, I can remember dialogs, sounds, etc and re-listen to them in my mind. I don't visualize easily at all. I first noticed the effect while walking around Boston on a break from testing, and being somewhat overwhelmed by the distinctness of all of the sounds around me - the people walking and talking, the engines of the taxis, the birds, etc. Each was like a separate track that I could isolate and focus on. As I said, I already think of myself as being a strongly auditory thinker, but it was like this dial had been turned up to 11. I vividly remember driving back from the TMS lab while listening to a live performance and easily counting how many singers were in the chorus. This wasn't permanent, but very memorable.
The regions they target have fairy specific effects. While the most memorable to me dealt with sound, another memorable one made us measurably faster at responding to an emotional categorization test. In this test you have a picture of part of a face (eyes or mouth) flashed in front of you for a split second, and you have to decide which of several emotions it represents as quickly as you can.
In short, TMS can affect vastly more than just emotional blindness. But the research is still young, and it's going to take time for it to be further developed into its full potential.
During the experiment the sequence of regions was switched up between us, I'm not sure we even all had the exact same set of regions tested. They tested many regions, from the frontal cortex to the motor cortex.
>And what kind of TMS parameters？It must have been repetitive TMS, at what frequency？
They were targeting a 1cm^3 portion of the brain with something like 2 pulses per second. I'm not sure what the frequency of the magnetic field in the pulses was, I think fairly high.
Incredibly interested here - I'm at the very high end of the functioning spectrum but resources in general and even anecdotes/advice has been very difficult to come by. I suspect that in the past 5 years there has been a lot more research and experiences available that could be looked up - is there a place I could dive deeper? I've felt very alone in having to come up with ways of working, socializing and living that don't cause immense amounts of friction. I've already preordered your father's book for one after seeing this thread!
I've been there a few times.. it feels like nearly all of the posts are from people who are having real trouble looking after themselves and keeping a job and being independent. I thankfully don't have those sorts of issues, but it honestly makes me feel very alone. I've been successful in life thus far by most metrics but I have a lot of incongruities that most people simply do not relate to.
Is there any good, reliable source of information on the treatment described? If it started in 2008, I'm surprised I have not seen it mentioned more recently. Are results as reliably dramatic as described?
Many thanks for joining the discussion - much appreciated :-)