PLT Test Blog

  Today’s post has an impressive title and a year ago I would not have understood it, but it summarizes exactly what may be going on inside the autistic brain.   It fits into the wider puzzle of hormonal imbalances in autism that then manifest themselves into behaviours ranging from qwerky to extreme self-injury. Human emotions and behaviours are influenced by parallel signals from the nervous system (i.e. the brain) and the endocrine system.   The two systems are interconnected and so your state of mind in controlled by hormones that you cannot directly control and the nervous system which you can learn to control.   For example, you can make yourself happy, unhappy, or depressed with the power of your mind.   You can train yourself to overcome fear.   Some people are clearly very much better at doing this than others; but the potential to do so lies within all of us, autistic or neurotypical.   This also explains why singing makes you happy and rapid...

Researchers are always looking for biomarkers of autism as a diagnostic tool; I am more interested in biomarkers as an indicator of might be going wrong and hence, perhaps, an indicator of what to do about it. Going back more than half a century, just such a biomarker was found.   Increased platelet levels of 5-HT ( 5-Hydroxytryptophan) were found in 30-40 % of the autistic population.   5-HTP increases the production of the neurotransmitter serotonin and so it was suggested that hyperserotonemia may be a factor in autism.     Hyperseratonemia (Serotonin syndrome) Hyperseratonemia is not treated by reducing the amount of serotonin, rather by using a receptor antagonist that in effect blocks the serotonin effect.     SSRIs and other anti-depressants Several classes of drugs target the 5-HT system including     anti-depressants , antipsychotics , anxiolytics , antiemetics , and antimigraine drugs , as well as the psychedelic drugs and empathoge...