This afternoon a group of MIT and Mass General researchers released a study called “Autism as a disorder of prediction.” In this paper, they argue that autistic people “experience things they don’t understand,” because our predictive ability is impaired.Read the paper hereInteresting as this sounds,…

A short while ago I was asked my opinion about a promising new treatment for depression being evaluated at a prominent research hospital.  I looked at the description on the hospital’s website, and it did indeed look interesting. I called the study coordinator for more details.He told me the th…

One of the things I love about fall is the fairs and carnivals.  The biggest of them all – where I live at least – is the Big E in West Springfield, Massachusetts.  It’s two weeks and three weekends of action, and I take thousands of photos there every year.One of my favorite places is the…

Where were you in ’78? I was 21 years old, trying to make a place for myself in a world of adults.  My clients were musicians, but the people who paid me were businessmen, and I had to make a good impression.That meant button up shirts, a nice pen in my pocket, and the ultimate professional acc…

Mark your calendars: Autistry Scientists & Artists …Party! IV – Saturday, April 11th – 7pm – 10pm at the Studio. You can RSVP to Sarah Horowitz or go to the Facebook events page. On the event page click on the Invite button and let all your Facebook friends know about th…

As he begins his second semester of community college, I want to catch everyone up on Ian’s college career to date. Last semester, Ian and I attended College of Marin’s beginning acting class. While we originally discussed transitioning towards independence last semester, we never made the jum…

2015 has opened with a bang at Autistry! Lots of new faces: students and staff. New projects are starting and older projects are being completed. We are all overcoming the temptation to linger in projects that we love so we don’t have to strike out into the unknown territory of a new project. …

Autism is a complex and heterogeneous condition, and understanding it takes brains —literally. Studying postmortem brain tissue from people with autism can provide important clues about the biology of the condition and pave the way to treatments. But to do such experiments, researchers rely on donat…

Jenny Palmiotto writes a letter from her future self to herself in 2015 Dear Jenny of 2015, When letters start off this way, it is usually to reflect on our past selves. These letters are filled with wisdom from the passage of time and the knowledge that ‘everything is going to be okay.’ This is not…

In a recent PLOS ONE journal article, researchers Jessica McCain, Brittany Gentile, W. Keith Campbell posit that perhaps geek culture is a way of sustaining a narcissistic self-view.Geeks with Swords (c) JE RobisonWhile I agree that it might look that way on the surface, I think their conclusion is …

This week I attended The Disney Effect: Communicating with Autistic Children through Animation, an event hosted by the Disney Family Museum in San Francisco. Expecting the usual “parent of an autistic” author talk and autism expert lecture, I was totally unprepared for the emotional impact of Ron S…

A tool kit of light-sensitive proteins allows researchers to mute communication between specific sets of neurons in mice. The kit, described 2 December in Neuron, could help to clarify the role of these neuronal circuits, which relay messages through the molecule gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), in a…

Wearable trackers/bracelets are becoming a way of life. They come in all shapes and forms (and costs) and are fairly affordable. However, how does a blind person use one? Also, can a wearable tracker be used by visually impaired people for doing something totally different - like maybe help them nav…

Signing up for a research study may feel like a short-term commitment. A blood draw or a cheek swab and it’s done. But those specimens and the data they yield last much longer, and might end up in studies that did not even exist when the participants first gave their consent. “Maybe I consented to t…