30 September 2025

Autism May Be Related To Human Level Intelligence

Autism may be related to the human specific evolution of higher intelligence: 

Researchers discovered that autism’s prevalence may be linked to human brain evolution. Specific neurons in the outer brain evolved rapidly, and autism-linked genes changed under natural selection. These shifts may have slowed brain development in children while boosting language and cognition. The findings suggest autism is part of the trade-off that made humans so cognitively advanced.

4 comments:

neo said...

so Yunxian 2 may have Autism

andrew said...

That's certainly possible, not that there would be any way to diagnose it at our great remove without a high quality ancient DNA sample.

neo said...

what about neanderthal genome

Guy said...

Maybe soon. But for now, without a good understanding of how Autism is caused and develops, or even a widely accepted definition of what classifies as Autism, it's hard to say what alleles or epigenetic marks to check for.