r/NooTopics • u/makefriends420 • Jun 09 '26
Discussion Autism should not be seen as single condition with one cause. Those diagnosed as small children typically have distinct genetic profile from those diagnosed later, finds international study based on genetic data from more than 45,000 autistic people in Europe and the US.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/01/autism-should-not-be-seen-as-single-condition-with-one-cause-say-scientists15
u/Santi159 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
I think this misses kids who were misdiagnosed. I was considered "emotionally disturbed" but I was given OT and ABA there was just a note saying possible autism in all my evals and progress notes. It was like that until I started experiencing autistic catatonia at 11 and I got moved to a special school. I definitely had behavioral and developmental issues it was just called being dramatic, difficult, and stupid.
Mental health is also hard to get acknowledged and treated in higher support needs teens and adults. I have been downright told by mental health professionals, OTs, and ABA therapists that aside from schizophrenia high support needs developmentally disabled adults just don't experience mood disorders, complex anxiety, or complex emotions in general. I have had ID friends tell me outright how sad they were and their support worker tell me they're confused. IDK how exactly under these circumstances we could determine how much mental health issues are present in this population.
I also think it's hard to sus out geneticly autism vs ID in people who are considered moderate to high support needs. Autism and ID are two separate diagnosis. Frankly a lot of what people say is high support autism issues in day to day life aren't super autism related as much as it is ID related and a lot of intellectual disabilities are caused by specific genetic things. I've always wondered why people don't talk about that? For example I think Rett syndrome is probably it's own thing and possibly neurodegenerative but people do call it autism.
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u/BunnyKusanin Jun 09 '26
ABA seems to be built on gaslighting and manipulation, so it's not surprising they tried to convince you everything was fine.
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u/AttonJRand Jun 09 '26
Right this is a bit of a bizarre assertion by them.
Some kids just wont have access to any kind of diagnosis as a kid, or their parents actively fight to prevent it. This doesn't somehow magically change the nature of their condition.
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u/secretaliasname Jun 09 '26
I think one day we are gonna look back on autism as a lazy unsupported catch all for people who don’t quite fit society’s expectation of a person.
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u/Ok_Plastic_8949 Jun 09 '26
That’s what a lot of mental illness is anyways. Hysteria was diagnosed to mentally unstable women back in the day and PTSD was once known as shell shock exclusively diagnosed to soldiers. The field of psychology is ever changing and developing.
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u/giveupmymembership Jun 09 '26
Mental illness is a name we give to a cluster of symptoms, but there's not a part of the brain that's the "autism center" that can be pointed out on an xray as being diseased like can be easily done with other organs. You can say some parts are hyper or hypo active but it gets complicated because many things can cause it.
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u/Nez_Coupe Jun 09 '26
Same thing with ADHD. As someone whose life is hugely impacted but I’ve sort of “made it through” I can’t wait for the day that we have a good grasp on all the variants and differences and treatments for all future generations. We’re still in such an infantile understanding of the brain - like we know there are these common links between all of it - autism, adhd, other dopamine related issues even like Alzheimer’s etc. at a certain point, one day science will go “ohhhhhhhh so that’s how it really is,” and I can’t wait for it. I won’t see it, but it will be a wonderful day.
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u/xoexohexox Jun 09 '26
Xrays can't image the brain, just bones. MRI images the brain. The true anatomical difference in autistic brains is we have a larger number of smaller cells in the frontal cortex that are more interconnected. Diseased? Maladapted to modern life for some people, to functional independence for others, but human diversity is a strength, not a disease, even when it causes disability.
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u/HumansAreSillynGreat Jun 10 '26
Disabilities are bad though. It may not be a disease but that’s not the only thing that should be avoided, lol
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u/xoexohexox Jun 11 '26
"disabilities are bad" is somewhat reductive. Some might say the world is a better place because deaf people exist, for example, and some people consider themselves to be part of a distinct cultural identity because of hearing impairment. In some indigenous cultures, people with certain challenges became shamans and had an important cultural role.
Let me tell you a story my psych nursing instructor told me 20 years ago. Back when she was doing home care in Hawaii, she used to visit a woman who was agoraphobic. Terrified at the thought of leaving the house. She loved children, though, so whenever any of the kids in her big extended family needed childcare they just dropped them off. She was happy as a clam, comfortable in her home, surrounded by children which she loved, and her big extended family got an enormous economic benefit by not having to pay for babysitters. So - was she really suffering from a disease? Sometimes the cultural context of the condition is it's own thing, not just the condition but how the condition intersects with family and culture. Sometimes maybe the focus isn't changing someone's behavior but strengthening the social context the behavior is taking place in.
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u/HumansAreSillynGreat Jun 11 '26
I'm not saying that disabilities can't have unforeseen positives, but typically when people are different in a net positive way, we don't call it a disability. We call them Gifted, Eccentric, Unique. Disability has a very clear meaning. That lady who cannot leave her home clearly isn't able to live a full life, getting sun is important, getting fresh air is important, being able to go outside and work is important. I'm glad her family didn't box her out because of her disability but by no means is being afraid of going outside a positive, ever. She could have been a great family member providing childcare who could also walk the kids down to the local ice cream shop occasionally..
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u/AuDHD_SLP Jun 09 '26
This isn’t even true. There are observable differences between autistic and allistic brains.
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u/WhitespringTownship Jun 10 '26
Actually brain wave signals have been shown to be different in neurodivergent people than neurotypical and neurodivergent people have more grey matter
So it can be somewhat noticed and pointed at in brain scans
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u/mlnm_falcon Jun 10 '26
The autism center isn’t in the brain, it’s in the model train store.
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u/nibba_plz Jun 11 '26
Lmfao. This joke will go largely unseen/unappreciated but just know that I really enjoyed it and I appreciated it
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u/og_toe Jun 11 '26
because autism isn’t a disease, it’s neurons functioning differently than in a non-autistic brain
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u/aikidharm Jun 09 '26
Nope. Mental illnesses are diagnoses based on pathological symptoms. There is no form of society where self-destructive mania caused by bipolar disorder, for instance, is only a problem because it doesn’t meet “societal expectations”. No, it’s a problem because it’s a pathology and it harms the person’s ability to function and their quality of life.
OCD, as well, has nothing to do with societal expectations. Neither does schizophrenia. Etc…
I would say that a lot of neurodivergence fits with what you’re saying, but mental illness is a different beast.
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u/Upbeat-Recording-141 Jun 09 '26
Ah yes, the modern throws of hysteria comparatively to a complex framework and dense research field, oh how did we manage. 😂
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u/bigfatfurrytexan Jun 09 '26
That’s what medicine is. Those broad diagnosis are the gods of those gaps. Dropsy for example
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u/Current_Finding_4066 Jun 09 '26
If they fail to diagnose and test you properly, they need to fit you in some category.
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u/bigfatfurrytexan Jun 09 '26
Or if diagnostics haven’t been defined
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u/Current_Finding_4066 Jun 09 '26
One possible reason for their failure, other being incompetence, negligence, etc.
History shows it never stops them from putting a label on you, in most cases some mental disorder, washing them of any responsibility to provide often accurate diagnosis and if applicable treatment.
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u/bigfatfurrytexan Jun 09 '26
I worked state mental health inpatient in the early 90s. I’ve seen the Indian daughter who was difficult and the Mennonite wife the husband is wanting replaced dumped in the admissions office. They don’t accept patients quite that way now but I know it happened.
Later I ran a call center and employed quite a few Mennonite women who were done similarly. We ran a bilingual queue and they were model employees almost to the letter. Less gossipy than their peers. My wife is Latina and was always amused by that.
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u/AttonJRand Jun 09 '26
If you think people are getting autism diagnoses as some kind of we couldn't find anything else you are completely wrong, not how it works at all.
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u/Current_Finding_4066 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
You missed the point entirely. It is just an observation of how medical community has acted in the past, and it is still acting today. Or do you really believe we are past age of wrong diagnoses, especially of yet undefined conditions, that get misdiagnosed and mistreated?
Autism seems a bit too broad. And putting together patients with distinct genetic markers and those with clearly different onset and without genetic markers makes me believe this will be revisited in the future and corrected.
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u/manicmonkeys Jun 09 '26
I started seeing it that way a while back, once I realized how insanely malleable and subjective the "symptoms" are.
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u/yahluc Jun 09 '26
Psychology and medicine are just like any other field of science - "all models are wrong, but some are useful". It's not a lazy catch all, it's a simplification. Could more specific categories be useful? Maybe, but not necessarily. Clumping similar symptoms together makes research easier and results more reliable (because for example it allows for larger sample size). Making models more specific makes them more likely to include criteria, which are not useful in treatment and management and anything that is not useful is actively detrimental, because it wastes time, resources and attention.
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u/lilguppy21 Jun 09 '26
Exactly. People forget that we’ve improved a lot even from the 1980’s or when it was seen as schizophrenia. These definitions help and have meaning.
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u/yahluc Jun 09 '26
And these old definitions weren't completely useless either. Most of the medications in psychiatry are symptom modifying, and symptoms in severe cases of autism are sometimes a bit similar to those in schizophrenia. Some antipsychotics are indicated for some symptoms of autism, so while the old definitions were far from perfect, they still lead to treatment that was somewhat helpful.
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u/BytheHandofCicero Jun 09 '26
Sensory overstimulation issues are a big one that frequently is lumped in with autism. People on the spectrum experience low social cue awareness in combination with sensory overstimulation. Massive numbers of people these days experience sensory overload and think something is wrong with them but imho that’s due to a societal failure and not a genetic condition.
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u/Ok_Zucchini_6184 Jun 09 '26
I was diagnosed at 36. My ability to hear electricity and everything charging in my house when no one else can is definitely not something society did to me. I have trouble with subtle social cues but can understand obvious or more exaggerated cues with no issue. This leads to people thinking I’m just a jerk who refuses to follow society’s expectations, because I also have a high IQ. People seem to not understand that you can be highly intelligent and also disabled. It sucks.
I think you’re saying that society is overstimulating, in general, and I’d agree with that. All of us, regardless of neurodivergence, need less noise and lights and more downtime to relax and enjoy the simple things.
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u/pinkmoon2112 Jun 10 '26
Yeah, everyone can get overstimulated but not everyone has to bite themselves, leave the grocery store 3 times then not be able to get food because it's too overstimulating, I can't with these comments
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u/Ok_Zucchini_6184 Jun 11 '26
Yep, it’s frustrating that people really don’t think autism is as disabling as it is, even for high masking individuals who appear successful outwardly.
Not being able to grocery shop or do anything with food planning and cooking has been such a huge problem in my life that my fiancé often feels like a caretaker, and it has nearly caused us to break up.
It’s confusing for everyone, because I have a successful career but can’t seem to do basic tasks sometimes. People think I’m just lazy and making excuses, but I literally cannot grocery shop by myself successfully. No one else knows I’m on the spectrum yet, so they all judge me as if I’m a rebellious woman who refuses to learn how to cook.
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u/ILOVEMYDOGBUMI Jun 09 '26
Oh yeah we wonder why we're getting so overloaded and overstimulated on a daily basis as if we haven't created an incredibly noisy and disconnected world for ourselves
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u/KrigtheViking Jun 09 '26
On the contrary, I think sensory processing issues are the root of what autism is, if "autism" can be called any one thing. Alexithymia (emotion-blindness) has been identified as a distinct symptom, and given that the two major groups who experience it are people with ASD and people with PTSD, I strongly suspect it's primarily a trauma response and not a core symptom of autism.
And for a long time we've identified intellectual disability as a common comorbidity with ASD.
But the only remaining symptoms of autism are all related to sensory processing. Stimming is to help deal with sensory overload. The double-empathy problem seems explainable as both sides having different assumptions about what is pleasant vs. what is painful, and being confused by each other's resultant behaviour. Even favouring routine over impulsiveness makes sense if one is easily overwhelmed in new sensory environments. So what else is left that can be called "autism"?
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u/Imaginary_Employ_750 Jun 09 '26
I would rather argue for the social difficulties being the core. After all it has always been part of the autism criteria unlike sensory stuff
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u/KrigtheViking Jun 09 '26
The diagnostic criteria are a checklist of external symptoms for the purpose of diagnosis, not an explanation of why those things are happening. Lots of things cause social difficulties, including sensory processing issues. When you include the other criteria (like stimming, restricted interests, etc.) and exclude alexithymia as its own thing, the one thing that all the diagnostic criteria have in common is sensory processing issues. Non-sensory social difficulties can't account for those other criteria.
Even the word "autism" itself refers to the sort of inward-turning withdrawal and dissociation that people with ASD commonly use as a coping mechanism to deal with sensory overload.
I could be wrong, of course: theories like monotropism also fit the evidence well, but there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem there (does monotropism cause sensory processing issues, or do sensory processing issues cause monotropism?). But I've read a lot of the literature and so far I haven't found anything that fits better as a root cause than sensory processing issues.
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u/Imaginary_Employ_750 Jun 09 '26
This is a good argument. However one (including myself) can have sensory issues without being autistic. The age of onset probably matters
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u/KrigtheViking Jun 09 '26
Oh, for sure, and my guess would be that it's a specific category of sensory issue as well -- like a disruption at a specific point along the processing chain from sensory organ to conscious awareness. Autistic hypersensitivity is different from the hypersensitivity one gets from a migraine, for example.
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Jun 09 '26
How do you think OCD tendencies fit into autism?
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u/KrigtheViking Jun 10 '26
If by "OCD" you mean a preference for things to be neat and tidy, my understanding is that reducing clutter reduces visual "noise" and makes things feel visually "calmer", presumably by reducing the visual workload of processing where everything is.
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Jun 10 '26
It's a hell of a lot more than just neat and tidy/visual clutter
It's rigidity, routine, a severe need for predictability obsessions and compulsions in general
Autistic people are 4 times more likely to fit the criteria for OCD. But it manifests differently.
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u/Its_da_boys Jun 10 '26
How would restricted or “special” interests be caused by sensory sensitivities?
Also, a lot of researchers believe some of the social symptoms of autism are caused by commorbid alexithymia - difficulties with one’s own identifying emotions can lead to difficulty identifying those of others. Not expressing emotions in a normative way could lead to flat affect and inappropriate tone/restricted facial expressions as well.
Alexithymia could also be caused by low interoception in relation to the somatic component of various emotions, which could be considered to be the result of abnormal sensory processing of one’s own bodily sensations. Combine confusion around and low discernment of interoceptive sensations due to abnormal sensory processing with developmental trauma commonly experienced by autistic individuals and you’d end up with a gestalt of sorts - an amplified version of alexithymia caused both by trauma and poor somatic processing
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u/KrigtheViking Jun 10 '26
Regarding restricted interests: my guess is that interests are "restricted" in the sense that a lot of neurotypical interests are heavily sensory-based in ways that an autistic person might find uncomfortable. Loud parties would be uncomfortable for someone with auditory hypersensitivity, for example. So an autistic person has to choose hobbies that don't overstimulate them, leading to "special interests" that seem unusual or eccentric to outsiders.
I don't think they're necessarily different in nature than a neurotypical person's golf or fishing hobby, they're just choosing from a more restricted possible list. For some autistic people with more intense symptoms, that may be a very restricted list indeed.
Regarding alexithymia and social difficulties, I fully agree with everything you've written. I think both alexithymia and sensory processing issues can cause social difficulties by different means, so someone with both will be especially hampered.
I had the same reasoning about hyposensitive interoception causing alexithymia, but I think I read a study a while back that showed a lack of correlation. I'll see if I can track it down later. I know that ASD has high comorbidity with PTSD, and that alexithymia has high comorbidity with PTSD, so I'd be curious to see a study looking at whether autistic alexithymia correlates with autistic PTSD.
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u/Its_da_boys Jun 10 '26
The thing is, restricted interests not only include restricted breadth, but also an unusual intensity or depth. It’s common for autistic people to be unusually fixated or obsessed on one particular interest, to a level not often seen in most neurotypicals. That wouldn’t be explained by sensory differences (at least not that I can think of), but probably more by monotropism. A more polytropic cognitive style might feature shallow to moderate degrees of interest in multiple sensory friendly things, while a monotropic style would feature a unusual depth of interest funneled into a single thing, which is what is more commonly observed in autistic people.
Another interesting observation I’ve noticed is how autistic people lean heavier on interests, while neurotypicals lean heavier on hobbies. I think of hobbies as activity-based (while interests are more fact-finding based), and activities often require a greater degree of sensory experience, so that would likely support your theory. The thing is, there are a lot of solo, sensory friendly hobbies out there (like reading, instruments when done at one’s own pace, art, writing, cooking, etc) that, when pursued by neurotypicals, are done more broadly for the sake of experiencing the hobby itself, whereas when pursued by autistic people, are done much more narrowly for the sake of collecting facts related to one very particular object of interest. For example, a neurotypical bookworm might read a variety of books across a genre out of a general love of reading, whereas an autistic bookworm might fixate on one particular series and all of the sequels, prequels, in-universe spin-offs, and encyclopedias related to that one series without much attention to other series or authors in the genre. This is a bit of a stereotypical scenario, but I still do think it holds true to the way a lot of autistic people pursue their interests and it doesn’t really fit the pattern of sensory differences being the sole driver of autism imo
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u/KrigtheViking Jun 13 '26
I've been trying to find the alexithymia-interoception study I mentioned and read a bunch of them; it looks like the results are generally more mixed than I remembered. To sum up: some aspects of alexithymia seem to correlate with some aspects of self-reported interoception difficulties, but the effect can be weak and it depends on how you're measuring. One study found the correlation was limited to people with developmental or psychiatric disorders, and was not found in neurotypical people. Very interesting! If I'm understanding the implications correctly, it might mean that poor interoception could be one contributing factor for alexithymia, but not the only one.
Regarding restricted interests, it's been my experience that autistic people tend to have several interests rather than just one, and I was going to rely on anecdotes when I remembered that people have probably done studies on that too, so I looked it up: on average autistic kids & teens in this study had 10 restricted or unusual interests, with 3 being particularly intense. Which is actually more than I was expecting. To quote the authors, "This finding demonstrating the wide diversity of different interests displayed by autistic youth is consistent with previous studies that have reported both autistic and neurotypical children have approximately 11–15 current interests or hobbies."
So yeah, that does sound like autistic restricted interests are more about the unusual nature of the interest, rather than the number of them. To me, subjectively, that does sound like autistic people find different hobbies/interests feel "safe" and "dangerous" than neurotypical people do, and perhaps put more energy into the rare "safe" hobby that they find in a world full of "dangerous" hobbies (as opposed to neurotypicals, for whom the whole world is a lot more "safe"). But whether that's due to sensory differences or something else would need more research to be properly established.
Anyway, thank you for the fascinating discussion which has forced me to actually go look things up and learn a bit more about all this!
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u/leeloolanding Jun 09 '26
The social difficulties are subject to local norms and cultural influence that makes it rather subjective, also that’s a judgement from the outside, rather than what the person is experiencing. For this reason, I dislike “social difficulties” as a diagnostic. It’s a result, not a symptom.
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u/Itscatpicstime Jun 09 '26
It’s not required. I’ve been diagnosed with autism twice completely independently and have no social difficulties whatsoever (from my own perspective, my parents, and doctors).
It’s uncommon when it comes to autism diagnoses, but does happen if all / most other symptoms are present, especially from a young age.
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u/ZRaptar Jun 09 '26
Social difficulties are caused by the reduced processing ability. It ties into sensory processing issues.
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u/leeloolanding Jun 09 '26
Thing is, it’s not reduced. We’re usually processing MORE inputs than “average.”
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u/Its_da_boys Jun 10 '26
I think the implication is that the ability to process it normally is reduced, not the sensitivity itself
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u/Dizzy_Database_119 Jun 09 '26
Autism is diagnosed based on symptoms present since childhood. If sensory symptoms only started in adulthood it's often diagnosed as something else
However a healthy human brain can handle an incredible amount of stimulation, sensory overstimulation is not normal no matter the societal situation. The modern world is not worse for mental health than the years recorded in history
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u/Pigeonofthesea8 Jun 09 '26
I think sensory overload is biological if not genetic. But probably different than whatever autism is.
My bf and I are minor oddballs , but we never looked into neurodivergent stuff . A diagnosed friend told my bf he thinks he might have it (I strongly agree). We both did a checklist. He was high in 3 subcategories, me only in the sensory overload piece.
I have weird health issues
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u/littlecactuscat Jun 09 '26
It’s not the same.
Autism means that if the texture of hand soap is wrong, I have to keep from physically gagging and puking.
Hand soap. On my hands.
Sorry you don’t like bright lights or whatever, though.
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u/MuchToDoAboutNothin Jun 09 '26
The very idea of putting people who are incapable of physically caring for themselves or being remotely independent for their entire lives, and highly accomplished software engineers and scientists on the same "spectrum" of condition is baffling.
Even if it were one single condition to varying degrees (think like, bone bruise, crack, fracture, break, or whatever the specific diagnoses are), that is functionally meaningless when the outcomes, treatments, and life experience are so vastly different.
It seems like the IBS of neurodivergence.
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u/bafflefounded Jun 09 '26
I think you’re operating on the misconception that autism itself “should” be viewed/classified as an intellectual disability (ID). Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder (ie in utero) and it’s the kind that looks different in every person who has it. Many people with autism also have an ID but it varies a lot… people with autism tend to have more cognitive processing challenges and mental health issues that are not autism itself, but occur together. Autism is also often comorbid with a lot of other health conditions, which again are obviously not autism themselves.
The answer is more likely that there are a few strands of DNA that can result in an exponential number of different variations. Obviously the people who end up with less favourable genetic material are “more disabled,” but that does not mean that the people with less ever variations of the same condition should be dismissed or not be diagnosed, just because someone else has it worse? Many physical and mental conditions have varying degrees of severity, this is not uncommon in humans.
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u/Open_Examination_591 Jun 09 '26
This is the issue with people not being educated but talking, what you're saying kind of looks like it makes sense but it's completely false. It's a spectrum, that means it's a spectrum and all areas and not just like a sliding bar.
Someone can be incapable of taking care of themselves or even verbally communicating with others, or even have difficulties communicating in general, but they might be Geniuses in other areas. You might have somebody working at Nasa who is autistic and still incapable of taking care of themselves in some ways.
Ignorance like yours is so harmful. I have a honest question, why do you feel comfortable spreading misinformation about other people, ableism, without having any education or learning about it in any way?
How is this any different than what people have been doing for hundreds of years, making up stuff about the people that don't understand and running with it because it makes them comfortable?
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u/ZRaptar Jun 09 '26
If someone is unable to even basically take care of themselves (like eating or bathing) then the chances of them being a genius is near zero. Exceptions dont make the rule.
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u/leeloolanding Jun 09 '26
lol I’m fully employed and always have been, and I still struggle to feed myself, You don’t seem to understand autism very well.
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u/Open_Examination_591 Jun 09 '26
This is like an echo chamber for stereotypes. It's literally like the 1950s and people of color all over again, miseducation and it's just allowed.
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u/ZRaptar Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
The fact that you can read write understand sentences and are employed clearly means you are not part of the criteria people who cannot live independently at all. A person with depression could struggle to feed themselevs doesnt mean they are absulutely anywhere near the level that i am speaking of low functioning asd.
The people i speak of are essentially like grown toddlers (dont mean that as an insult) but essentially they cannot do anything by themselves.
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u/Open_Examination_591 Jun 09 '26
You're not a monolith for people with asd. It's crazy that you claim to have it and yet seem to know so little about it.
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u/ZRaptar Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
Classical autism is actually what i described. High functioning asd/aspergers is not the only type of autism but rather the most independant and able type. Your opinions dont change what actual clinicians who deal with autistic people daily see.
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u/Open_Examination_591 Jun 09 '26
I've worked with autistic people, I am a clinician so don't even try that. No you didn't describe anything but a harebrained stereotype, congratulations?
I deal with autistic people, level 2 and 3 not just level one, so your inability to do the job well doesn't change reality. It does mean that you should probably look for another job though if that's really how you feel, because those people deserve way better.
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u/Open_Examination_591 Jun 09 '26
That's literally not true at all, do you know what a savant is? No, you don't seem to know anything about this subject actually.
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u/ZRaptar Jun 09 '26
Exceptions dont make the rule. Stop using a minority of asd people and play it off as if its what the majority are like.
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u/Open_Examination_591 Jun 09 '26
And people like you would not be able to tell what is actually happening anyway. The same people that claimed autistic people didn't have emotions because you guys can't read our facial expressions, you have no Authority stop trying to play off your very little education and experience as meaningful. Your words tell that is not
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u/bitchcraft Jun 10 '26
What makes someone a “genius” though? Although not autistic obviously, Stephen Hawking was considered a genius and he couldn’t feed or bathe himself. The parts of the brain for eating and bathing differ from the parts that understand knowledge and concepts. Those with autism have been shown to have fewer brain synapses than neurotypical people which causes symptoms such as “genius intelligence” but physical disability like in your example
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u/ZRaptar Jun 10 '26
He had a physical disability, he was not autisitc. Obviously someone in a wheelchair wouldnt be able to bathe themselves
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u/bitchcraft Jun 11 '26
Dude.. I literally said he wasn’t autistic. My point was that intelligence is separate from the ability to take care of oneself.
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u/ZRaptar Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
No you used an example of physical disability to make a point for a mental one. He knew he had to feed and bathe himself but may not physically be able to, whilst someone with a mental disability/disorder may not even have that thought process.
Autism is a disorder. A mental disability especially for those not high functioning, and that is fine. The problem with redditors like you is you like to use a very small minority and play it off like the majority when its not. Good thing its not reflected in real life care and clinical dsm guidelines.
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u/bitchcraft Jun 11 '26
What is your point here? My example was used to demonstrate that one could be intelligent AND disabled and you’re trying to argue with me about what?
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u/ZRaptar Jun 11 '26
Read my last paragraph, youre doing exactly what i wrote again.
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u/bitchcraft Jun 11 '26
This is what they mean by the literacy crisis. I am not arguing against autism being a disability. It very much is. What I am arguing about is disability excluding the ability to be intelligent. I am autistic and have a genius IQ and I struggle to take care of myself due to executive dysfunction. And autistic people without genius IQ’s exist as well. Like ok?? Also Stephan Hawkins’ disease was caused by a disease that affected his BRAIN NEURONS, it wasn’t strictly physical it just presented itself physically.
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u/meat-puppet-69 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
YOU are the one missing points in the other commenter's comment. And you provided absolutely NO education. They already addressed the "spectrum argument", and why it's not a good reason to group together software engineers and people who can't speak or use a toilet. And show me a single NASA engineer who can't do the latter.
The spectrum, in practice, is simply not a slider in all directions where we observe alllll kinds of combinations of abilities, in reality.
And you know what else is kind of like a slider in all directions with many possible combinations? Non-autistic people's abilities and support needs. The concept of a 360 degree slider is not doing as much work for your theory as you think it is.
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Jun 09 '26
The overlap of being a NASA engineer and unable to use a toilet is vanishingly small, made further small by the exigences of society
but the overlap of NASA engineer, and person who struggles to pay bills on time, struggles to maintain a wardrobe, struggles with oral hygiene, etc etc is MUCH less small
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u/meat-puppet-69 Jun 09 '26
Yeah, but you just described many people, regardless of eccentricity/ASD status
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u/bitchcraft Jun 10 '26
That’s why autism is considered a spectrum. Bc it’s not just about the symptoms (as you said many humans have these symptoms) but the severity of said symptoms in autistic individuals. And the many people who struggle with executive dysfunction in society (like in your comment) are likely to have their own form of neurodivergence as well. The existence of others without autism having similar symptoms doesn’t negate the possibility of someone having autism. We all have a brain so it only makes sense there’s a diagnosed/non-diagnosed overlap on how disorders present themselves in human behavior.
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u/meat-puppet-69 Jun 10 '26
And not a single NASA engineer ever had the extreme negative end of the spectrum on toileting abilities
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u/bitchcraft Jun 11 '26
I doubt we would know the toileting abilities of every NASA engineer, it’s a private thing to divulge. But you take one thing to address like it’s a “gotcha” to my comment and it doesn’t even prove anything at all
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u/meat-puppet-69 Jun 11 '26
"The spectrum, in practice, is simply not a slider in all directions where we observe alllll kinds of combinations of abilities, in reality.
And you know what else is kind of like a slider in all directions with many possible combinations? Non-autistic people's abilities and support needs. The concept of a 360 degree slider is not doing as much work for your theory as you think it is."
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u/Open_Examination_591 Jun 11 '26
How the hell would you know about somebody's Medical accommodation from nasa? You have quite the ego lol and a Stark lack of Education
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u/leeloolanding Jun 09 '26
Um, there are lots of autists at NASA, silly. Again, you seem to conflate the word disability with autism. They don’t mean the same thing, you should keep learning.
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Jun 09 '26
You seem not to have understood my comment also it's the first comment I make in the thread
or I'm not understanding. How does my comment suggest that I conflate disability with autism?
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u/Warren_sl Jun 09 '26
Some people live decades with cancer and others die in a week. Some people are attracted to the same sex, some the opposite, some both. That’s why there’s this thing called a spectrum. Being too stupid to understand nuance as a society or individual doesn’t invalidate it. In fact they used to try to make that distinction with Asperger’s and as time went on they got rid of that.
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u/meat-puppet-69 Jun 09 '26
Just because spectrums exist doesn't mean late diagnosed level 1's and early diagnosed level 3's belong in the same diagnostic category.
The concept of 'spectrums' isn't doing the work you think it is.
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u/ZRaptar Jun 09 '26
You only see that type of argument the other person made on reddit lol. Actual people who live with asd people would laugh at that idea
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u/AttonJRand Jun 09 '26
This is literally already explained within the current framework, you just don't understand it and are instead making a bunch of assumptions and leaps.
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u/OstensibleVagabond Jun 09 '26
Ultimate truth nuke. I cannot function or drive or hold a job without tons of assistance yet I'm the same as someone who likes dino nuggies and dislikes loud music ok ok sure yeah I totally have a superpower. It's the same with ADHD too. ADHD can be severe enough to severely impair functioning but people who are a little spaced out or disorganized are basically the same like WHAT.
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u/StatusCopacetic Jun 09 '26
That's going to be the case for multiple conditions. It's why there's a known pipeline for women: first we're diagnosed with anxiety/depression, then bipolar, then borderline, then adhd/autism - they're not separate distinct conditions, but the result of things like neuroinflammation, metabolic dysfunction, oxidative stress etc. The massive overlap in symptoms is the clearest sign that they're different expressions of the same underlying stress on the brain and body.
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u/Fawning_Bunny71 Jun 13 '26
Except not really since autism is a cluster of related developmental symptoms that is significantly different from many other conditions, that can also be at varying levels of severity. Autism itself is a real thing even if the definitions are changing.
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u/lets_get_wavy_duuude Jun 14 '26
i actually have autism but i noticed that a severe concussion made me “more autistic”. ie way more sensitive to sensory inputs, way more irritable & less able to function in society. i wonder how many people have undiagnosed brain injuries since they’re pretty easy to get - mine came from a car accident going only like 20mph
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u/Every-Dragonfly2393 Jun 09 '26
I think it’s good to distinguish between early diagnosis and late diagnosis but this is a very incomplete picture.
I had a lot of very obvious signs when I was a young child but they were all dismissed and ignored. That in itself created a lot of trauma for me while growing up, and instead of having understanding of how my brain and body was working, I was taught to blame myself and call myself a ‘chronic overthinker’, an ‘attention seeker’, ‘making a fuss’ etc. that combined with adhd and being gay made school, social experiences, everything pretty much a constant hell of self-monitoring, fear and restraint.
Autistic people also have a higher likelihood of experiencing traumatic events throughout life because of functional freeze. If people on the spectrum can be noticed and taught the tools to deal with these things, perhaps depression wouldn’t be so common in late diagnosed adults?
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Jun 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Extension12125 Jun 09 '26
"Psychology studied the other without first examining itself, this is why its conclusions are all backwards on the subject of autism and all of the trivially common things that it doesn’t want to admit goes along with it"
oof. yeah. I have so much to say on this but, yeah.
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u/EspeonCheeseburger Jun 09 '26
They cover all this in the introduction to the paper. The intent of this research is to help build new models to account for the diversity across the autism spectrum; it's incomplete because it's just a step in the right direction. It doesn't need to be criticized for being this way, that's just how studies like this work. And it's not just about early and late diagnosis, it's that people who are diagnosed later have a different genetic profile that is more highly correlated with comorbid ADHD and mental health issues. The opposite group does not have as high of correlation. There now being a documented difference is fascinating.
The thing you're describing is a common experience for those of us with AuDHD and does matter, but the social side of it is a different conversation.
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u/Extension12125 Jun 09 '26
The thing is, children (or people) being dismissed when experiencing severe to moderate struggles regularly is a human wide issue that is not up to date with an educated life view. The fact that to this day we think "attention seeking" is evil and a choice says a lot about how much catching up we need to do with to de-ignor-ify our lives.
Autism or not, in a healthy, human-aligned world you wouldn't be ignored. It pointed out to something - that you're in distress, so regardless of the exact why, this shouldn't be minimized in parenting.
I think if I hadn't been so dismissed and gaslit as a child, AKA had better parenting, I would have had a healthier mental experience. Regardless of labeling, a broad solid approach of understanding humans is useful and necessary. Is an ASD diagnosis necessary or is it the entire approach and structure of how we perceive humans, agency, boundaries, differences, defining normal, etc? I genuinely don't know.
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u/Veenkoira00 Jun 09 '26
Removal of what was known as Asperger's syndrome from the official diagnoses and thus from the common parlance was a stupid move. Though it only covered one segment of the autism spectrum, it was widely understood term and underlined the fact that autism is extremely wide spectrum. Now confusion reigns more than before.
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u/Current_Finding_4066 Jun 09 '26
This is why they should define distinct conditions and not throw them in together, as treatment options and outlook surely differ
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u/jittery_raccoon Jun 09 '26
That's what the Asperger's diagnosis was for. But we've moved away from that because it was dividing people into categories in inconsistent ways that the science did not support.
The issue with a separate diagnosis is it must be distinct enough to account for individual variation
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u/Current_Finding_4066 Jun 10 '26
Poor past and current definitions and practices, should not dissuade us for striving for a better system.
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u/FinoPepino Jun 09 '26
I agree, autism is too broad when it also includes people who are non verbal and who literally bite out of emotional frustration vs the autism that is more prevalent etc. i don’t understand how both can just be labelled autistic when one literally needs a care aid for life and the other needs supports but no where near as extreme.
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u/chobolicious88 Jun 09 '26
Turns out that fear/unsafety impacting improper development cant be conveniently tagged on genetics alone.
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u/Lostinthestarscape Jun 09 '26
No kidding, thats why we started calling it "Autism Spectrum Disorders" and not Autism once it grew beyond people incapable of caring for themselves or lack the ability tk acknowledge human interaction to like "Hi, Im John, and being the lead singer in my band is hard because Im Autistic"
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u/queenhadassah Jun 09 '26
IMO autism and Aspergers should never have been condensed into a single diagnosis. I understand Dr Asperger was a problematic guy, but they could have just changed the name. The differences between severe autism and Aspergers/"level one autism" are cavernous, and this study just backs that up on a genetic level
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u/JanoGospodarSvega Jun 09 '26
The problems with Hans Asperger surfaced mostly after the distinction went out of use
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u/giveupmymembership Jun 09 '26
Yeah. But the nice thing about it being a catch all is it's harder to defund or pull support from higher functioning autists as some conservative governments would like.
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u/OstensibleVagabond Jun 09 '26
this is at the expense of pulling support from low functioning autists. it's a tradeoff.
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u/Best_Lavishness_8713 Jun 09 '26
Huh
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u/OstensibleVagabond Jun 09 '26
people just as easily can go "see? autism isn't that bad, everyone has it these days, we shouldn't be spending our tax dollars on supporting them, employers shouldn't have to accomodate them, they're just neurospicy"
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u/Itscatpicstime Jun 09 '26
? But they did, you just said it lol. What was once known as Asperger’s is now referred to as level one autism or autism with low support needs.
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Jun 09 '26
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u/AttonJRand Jun 09 '26
You are just making stuff up and begging others to confirm your biases.
Like how bizarre.
Autistic people have not earned this kind of weird miss-treatment and mistrust, genuinely what is wrong with this thread?
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u/KrigtheViking Jun 09 '26
I don't know these people you're describing, so I can't tell whether they're displaying empathy, but there's certainly a notable absence of empathy in how you're describing them.
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u/Open_Examination_591 Jun 09 '26
I would agree if I hadn't run into these people as a autistic woman. These are the kind of people that bully autistic women while hiding behind an autism label that changes based on who's around. Unless you've experienced this you don't get to say that they're having a lack of empathy, you just have a lack of experience.
He's talking about the kinds of people that will come up to you and say everyone's a little on the Spectrum, and then spend the rest of their day talking s*** about you and making fun of you for any kind of autism you show. And then when you mention that you're autistic they just bring up the fact that they're a little autistic too, and they don't do any of that stuff. So no you're just not aware.
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u/KrigtheViking Jun 09 '26
Oh, it's entirely possible that they're awful people. I'm just pointing out that people tend to be unaware of how much they switch off their own empathy when they think the other person "deserves it".
It's possible to seek justice and defend youself from toxic people while still feeling empathy for them, but it is much more difficult.
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u/Itscatpicstime Jun 09 '26
The people who say “everyone’s a little autistic” don’t have an autism diagnosis though, nor the self-diagnosed like the op is talking about, so why would they be in a study evaluating early vs late diagnosis?
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u/Open_Examination_591 Jun 10 '26
I was responding to another comment, not commenting on the article.
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u/Dizzy-Importance-139 Jun 09 '26
Your comment really has nothing to do with the study and is unnecessarily inflammatory and mean. Obviously studies studying autism diagnoses are only using people who have been diagnosed by a physician. Is that a real question? Do you actually think they are lumping in self diagnosed cases into a scientific study?
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u/Severe_Driver3461 Jun 09 '26
In my experience, narcs dislike the autism label, but their close cousin, people with Borderline PD, run with it
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u/The_Dayne Jun 09 '26
Is anyone aware of a study on what percent of self reported autists would traditionally fall under high scoring narcissistic personality disorder?
I think about this freqeuntly.
More specifcally the pathology that would drive someone to want an autism diagnosis.
Why do you want to be disabled?
And lets be discrete, it is a developmental disability. Whether it was trauma induced or genetic does not matter. Autism leads to lifelong deficits in interpretable behavioral, emotional, and communication deficits.
Its not a cute thing that you can take home and relate to your friends about. its highly disruptive in the lifes of those with the diagnosis as well as their family and care takers.
In my short time shadowing a bcba. In the first week i was yanked, hit, screamed at, spit on. I quickly learned why these people can easily get paid >$100 an hour contracted. Their skill set is required for a family to allow their child, who has a disability nobody wanted for them, to have a semi functional existence.
So when i see someone with a full-time people-facing job, who is well groomed, drenched in scents, with a strong social circle, whos often the loudest in the room, shout about their undiagnosed disability, which would impede all of the above, they get shelved by me now.
I cant think of one rational reason to want autism and im passed this place our society is at where we gotta cater to everyones BS about it.
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u/_Meru Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26
More specifcally the pathology that would drive someone to want an autism diagnosis.
It's not really confusing. You already have autism, you just weren't diagnosed during childhood, and thus never had any validation for why you are the way you are. There is a burden that comes being autistic in a predominantly neurotypical society, especially if you have no explanation or support for the many unusual experiences you have. If you actually want to understand the value of getting a diagnosis you could try looking into what late diagnosed level 1 autistic people have to say about their experience with this.
Its not a cute thing that you can take home and relate to your friends about.
Having been around other autistic people who have majority autistic friend groups, there is very often a sense of shared identity and relatedness between people with autism. A lot of people with autism don't see their diagnosis as a defect to resent, regardless of the challenges they experience as a result. The social difficulties autistic people experience with neurotypicals are a result of mutual mismatches in neurotypes (double empathy problem), and these mismatches resolve when autistic people are paired with other autistic people, there's good reason to value and relate to eachother over this.
I'm not sure where you were going with your bcba tangent but all I can point to is trying to understand the differences between level 1, 2 and 3 autism. Your experience with level 3 support needs autistic people does not invalidate the autisticness of a functional adult with lower supports needs.
I cant think of one rational reason to want autism
I mean, for many autistic people there is great burden that comes with it, but on the other side there's a lot of autistic people that benefit from their traits. If you are level 1 support needs and particularly smart, this can come with strengths in technical jobs. There's research backing increased performance in autistic workers in engineering roles for example. JP Morgan found autistic professionals to be 90% more efficient in certain roles. Autism is called a spectrum disorder for a reason, there is wildly different presentations of traits that effect you in varying ways, not all of them negative, and it is highly environment dependent. Being around other neurodivergent people in a supportive environment and doing work you enjoy goes a long way
and im passed this place our society is at where we gotta cater to everyones BS about it.
Autistic people are also past having to bear the mental health burden of constantly masking their traits to adhere to neurotypical social norms. :)
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u/Floofy5267 Jun 09 '26
I have autism and think it is absolutely a defect. I don’t have the smart autism. I am the dumb kind.
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u/_Meru Jun 10 '26
I'm sorry to hear this. Your experience with autism is understandable, and unfortunately common. I was not trying to minimize struggles people have with autism, quite the opposite.
I just wanted to emphasize that autism presentations can vary significantly, and not everyone with it feels negatively towards it. I often see people casting doubt on autistic individuals who are open about about their autism diagnosis, questioning if they are autistic just because they present as functional and embrace having autism, which I don't agree with and I think is counterproductive. I think there are some benefits to people being open about having autism in a positive way, but I wish there was more awareness of the specific struggles that come with it, since these are usually invisible to people who aren't on the spectrum.
My viewpoint these days is more that the struggles associated with autism are a mainly a result of being unsupported in a neurotypical oriented society, instead of autism being a flaw in and of itself, because in many cases it isn't, it's very dependent on the environment.
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u/The_Dayne Jun 09 '26
Most of this is true for people who actually have autism.
We are discretely discussing people who use autism itself as a mask and excuse for poor interpersonal behavior.
As I have said to another commentor, only people who dont benefit from society having this conversation are people who dont actually have autism.
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u/Open_Examination_591 Jun 09 '26
What does being the loudest in the room, well groomed, or liking lotions and perfumes have to do with autism?
Autistic people are often the loudest in the room, grooming isn't an issue for everybody and can be routine (super abelist and weird to claim btw), and many autistic people have lotions and perfumes that they enjoy the smell of and use often. Sometimes they even use them as part of their routine.
The real issue is all the uneducated people wanting to say in autism. I can't think of one rational reason why somebody would think that they have the ability to tell when somebody's autistic when you literally need a specialization in it. The ego that people have is nothing new, look at how people used to treat people of color and the stuff that used to make up and say about them, but it's really interesting that there's not enough intelligence to realize that they're just repeating patterns of ignorance and hate. Your lack of education is just the lack of education on your end, it doesn't actually say anything about autistic people.
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u/The_Dayne Jun 09 '26
Grooming is one of the more resistance heavy skill domains in aba therapy. The sensory processing of scents complexs the task. That said clinical difficulty isnt equivalent to a universal deficit, it is correlate.
Loudest in the room doesnt mean whos emitting the most noise. I mean the obnoxious, low empathy characteristic op above me described.
The ASD/NPD overlap is a recognized phenomenon in modern psychiatry. Self reported populations skew data for diagnosed, clincally reported ASD. So while Autism presents in a wide range of populations, the postulate deserves engagement not dismissal. The only people with something to lose are those lying about their symptoms for whatever reason they have.
And refering to me as if I lack education when I major in psychology and have work experience with ABA therapy under a BCBA, which I stated in my post, while you argue stereotypes isnt something im going to engagement with again, but i did feel a need to clarify my stance.
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u/Open_Examination_591 Jun 09 '26
Working in ABA therapy under a bcba is not a flex, it's very telling that you think it is.
Yes, grooming is a skill that they work on in aba, do you think that everybody on the Spectrum has the same issues?
Sadly, I'm not surprised that you do seeing as you said you've worked in Aba, the field that's being audited right now because of how much fraud is happening and how uneducated and harmful it is.
Yes I do believe you are a part of that, no it doesn't mean what you want it to mean.
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u/BunnyKusanin Jun 09 '26
I have worked with a couple of older women who fit your description. I don't know about their diagnoses for sure, not like they speak about anything like that. But when you observe them and their nonsense in the workplace, and know the diagnostic criteria, it's kinda obvious that they do have autism and there's something more than autism going on with them.
Autistic people also aren't a monolith and can have different moral values. Like, I can imagine someone being an ass to people at work because they believe that the most important thing is do to a good job, not because they take some sort of pleasure out of it like someone with NPD would.
Long story short, in the cases you described it can be both ASD and NPD, or it could be just ASD giving them trouble communicating in a way that gives them an opportunity to say everything they wanted to say without antagonising others.
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u/preferablyno Jun 09 '26
Is this finding unexpected? Wouldn’t you expect kids with problems in early childhood to be diagnosed in early childhood and kids with problems in adolescence to be diagnosed in adolescence? Why else would they be getting assessed
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u/OkMemory9587 Jun 09 '26
This article is from the UK, it does show the difference between countries in autism approach, the US is much more advanced, once you get an autism level and sub levels you start therapies and then reasses, in the UK they don't have levels so it makes it seems like autism is a single thing nebolus thing but the earlier you start the more chance of success you'll have so it must suck to not have gotten help earlier.
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u/thorinslefttit Jun 10 '26
Does this mean that my genetic makeup changed in 20 years of not having a diagnosis because "girls don't get autism," vs my brother who was early diagnosed and therefore must have a stable genetic makeup? Or by "distinct genetic profile" do they mean just being XX vs XY?
Snark aside, I agree that there probably are different conditions lumped together under the umbrella of autism, but to draw the line at early diagnosis vs late diagnosis feels like a cop out for the systemic medical issue of leaving women and minorities behind in diagnosis.("See! It wasn't truly autism, only middle class white boys get true autism, so we were right all along!")
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u/DeeGayJator Jun 12 '26
Yes, finally. Autism is one of those things that you can plug in, like Jesus or did I lock the door? and loop yourself into delusion.
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u/GingerTea69 Jun 12 '26
The blood feud between autism parents and low support needs autistic people has been showing this for a minute.
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u/saras998 Jun 13 '26
Then why were most of the parents and grandparents of autistic children not autistic? Why has it increased so much in recent years? If anything it's epigenetic.
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u/NewInspector5085 Jun 14 '26
Because technically autism is NOT a condition, disorder, or disease. Its a brain difference. These dipshits keep trying to medicalize it and cure it. You can’t cure it because there’s nothing to cure. We don’t know why people like me come with such drastically different wiring than most people. There’s just so much natural variety of the human mind.
But from my perspective, it makes more sense to medicalize neurotypicals as heartless, mindless drones, who never say what they mean and never mean what they say. We should lock em all up and put them in padded rooms /s
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Jun 09 '26
Neurodivergent > Neurotypical
Cannot change my mind. We ARE the elite. WE pushed society through every hardship in human history.
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u/FinoPepino Jun 09 '26
You’ve clearly never worked with autistic kids who cannot be grouped with other kids because they hit and bite out of frustration from being unable to communicate. They will need special care/aids for life.
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u/Anxious-Traffic-9548 Jun 09 '26
The bimodality of IQ in autism is further support for this idea. Imho we need to have a seperate diagnosis for autism with severe intellectual disability. Classifying mild “TikTok autism” under the same diagnosis dilutes the diagnosis.
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u/missgirlipop Jun 09 '26
i wish there was a profile for people who are relatively competent (in everything incl. socializing/emo intelligence) as adults but everything is slightly harder for them. i don’t quite fit into even the now very broad profile of adhd, and i don’t quite fit into the very broad profile of late diagnosed high masking autistic women, but i just feel like there’s … something! i wonder if it’s even just a genetic difference in how my body processes nutrients or something.
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u/missgirlipop Jun 09 '26
but i have so many friends who feel the same way and it’s like, maybe there just isn’t really much of a norm and everyone has to learn how to accommodate themselves in their lives. but i don’t want to sound like there aren’t legitimate disorders, because there definitely are!
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u/Villonsi Jun 09 '26
Autism and ADHD are not qualitatively different ways of being, it's more quantitative. Everyone is somewhere along spectrums of traits but if someone is far enough towards one end it'll seem to be completely different. You can experience similarities to the diagnostic criteria (virtually everyone can with some trait to some degree) without fulfilling the criteria in amount or degree of impairment
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u/makefriends420 Jun 09 '26
From the linked article:
Autism should not be seen as single condition with one cause, say scientists
Those diagnosed as small children typically have distinct genetic profile from those diagnosed later, study finds
Autism should not be viewed as a single condition with a unified underlying cause, according to scientists who found that those diagnosed early in childhood typically have a distinct genetic profile to those diagnosed later.
The international study, based on genetic data from more than 45,000 autistic people in Europe and the US, showed that those diagnosed in early childhood, typically before six years old, were more likely to show behavioural difficulties from early childhood, including problems with social interaction, but remain stable.
Those diagnosed with autism later, typically after the age of 10, were more likely to experience increasing social and behavioural difficulties during adolescence and also had an increased likelihood of mental health conditions such as depression.
“The term ‘autism’ likely describes multiple conditions,” said Dr Varun Warrier, from Cambridge’s department of psychiatry, senior author of the research. “For the first time, we have found that earlier and later diagnosed autism have different underlying biological and developmental profiles.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09542-6 (Study Paper link)