Autistic-spectrum conditions and psychotic-spectrum conditions (mainly schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression) represent two major suites of disorders of human cognition, affect, and behavior that involve altered development and function of the social brain. We describe evidence that a large set of phenotypic traits exhibit diametrically opposite phenotypes in autistic-spectrum versus psychotic-spectrum conditions, with a focus on schizophrenia. This suite of traits is inter-correlated, in that autism involves a general pattern of constrained overgrowth, whereas schizophrenia involves undergrowth. These disorders also exhibit diametric patterns for traits related to social brain development, including aspects of gaze, agency, social cognition, local versus global processing, language, and behavior. Social cognition is thus underdeveloped in autistic-spectrum conditions and hyper-developed on the psychotic spectrum. We propose and evaluate a novel hypothesis that may help to explain these diametric phenotypes: that the development of these two sets of conditions is mediated in part by alterations of genomic imprinting. Evidence regarding the genetic, physiological, neurological, and psychological underpinnings of psychotic-spectrum conditions supports the hypothesis that the etiologies of these conditions involve biases towards increased relative effects from imprinted genes with maternal expression, which engender a general pattern of undergrowth. By contrast, autistic-spectrum conditions appear to involve increased relative bias towards effects of paternally expressed genes, which mediate overgrowth. This hypothesis provides a simple yet comprehensive theory, grounded in evolutionary biology and genetics, for understanding the causes and phenotypes of autistic-spectrum and psychotic-spectrum conditions.

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Psychosis and autism as diametrical disorders of the social brain

Psychoanalysis has long represented itself as being not only a treatment tool but a method of research. The reason, of course, is that this method of recollection presumably helps the individual to re-experience the feelings he had during significant events or periods of his life-time and, in doing so, to understand why he behaves and feels as he does. Sometimes it seems that the psychoanalyst claims that this is indeed the only way to self-understanding, but even the most died-in-the-wool, orthodox analyst would not in this day and age claim that self-understanding can come in no other ways than through his chosen discipline.

The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self

Background: The genetic basis of autism has received great attention during the last few years. The psychiatric status of parents of persons with autism has been studied as part of the broad phenotype of autism.



Methods:  In the current study we examined all studies in which psychiatric difficulties of parents of children with autism were compared to those of parents of other children, as part of the broad phenotype of autism.



Results:  Overall, when parents of children with autism were compared to all other parents taken together, i.e., parents of typically developing children grouped together with parents of children with diagnoses other than autism, they were found to have more psychiatric difficulties, but this finding was inconsistent. Once type of comparison group (e.g., Down Syndrome, learning disabilities) and method of assessing psychiatric difficulties (e.g., self-report, clinical measures) were taken into account, different findings were yielded for the various comparison groups and methods of assessing psychiatric difficulties in parents, suggesting that parents of children with autism present more psychiatric difficulties, mostly in comparisons involving samples of parents of children with no known genetic risk (e.g., Down Syndrome).



Conclusions:  These findings suggest that in future studies, researchers should carefully consider the advantages and disadvantages of various comparison groups and other characteristics, such as method of assessment, gender, and level of functioning, in attempting to delineate the specificity and universality of the broad phenotype of autism.

Psychiatric disorders in parents of children with autism: a meta-analysis.

Adaptation is a central organizing principle throughout biology, whether we are studying species, populations, or individuals. Adaptation in biological systems occurs in response to molar and molecular environments. Thus, we would predict that genetic systems and nervous systems would be dynamic (cybernetic) in contrast to previous conceptualizations with genes and brains fixed in form and function. Questions of nature versus nurture are meaningless, and we must turn to epigenetics—the way in which biology and experience work together to enhance adaptation throughout thick and thin. Defining endophenotypes—road markers that bring us closer to the biological origins of the developmental journey—facilitates our understanding of adaptive or maladaptive processes. For human behavioral disorders such as schizophrenia and autism, the inherent plasticity of the nervous system requires a systems approach to incorporate all of the myriad epigenetic factors that can influence such outcomes.

https://sites.oxy.edu/clint/physio/article/humandevelopmentbiologicalandgeneticprocesses.pdf

Véronique Goussé

Papers

Fringe phenotypes in autism: a review of clinical, biochemical and cognitive studies.

Episodic memory and self-awareness in Asperger Syndrome: Analysis of memory narratives

Adolescence et parentalité dans les troubles du spectre autistique : comment font face les parents ?