Dana F . 4/1/25 Dana F . 4/1/25

Lesser known facts about autism

How much do you know about Autism? Here are some facts that aren’t always talked about.

There is No Single Test to Diagnose Autism

There isn’t a single medical test (like a blood test or brain scan) for autism, but specialists use various tools to evaluate symptoms. Diagnosing autism spectrum disorder (ASD) typically involves a combination of standardized tests, clinical observations, and developmental history assessments. The full assessment process typically takes a few weeks to a few months, depending on specialist availability.

Girls and Women Are Underdiagnosed
Autism has historically been studied more in boys, leading to a diagnostic bias. Many autistic girls and women "mask" their traits by mimicking social behaviors, which makes it harder for them to be diagnosed and get support.

Autistic Burnout is a Real and Debilitating Condition
Autistic burnout happens when an individual experiences prolonged stress from masking their autism, dealing with sensory overload, or struggling with societal expectations. It can lead to extreme exhaustion, loss of skills, and mental health challenges.

Autistic People Often Have Unique Learning Styles
Many autistic individuals learn in non-traditional ways, often excelling in areas of deep interest while struggling with conventional educational methods. Some may be hyperlexic (learning to read very early) but have difficulty with comprehension, while others may struggle with rote memorization but excel in pattern recognition or creative problem-solving.

It’s Not Just About Social Challenges
While autism is often associated with social difficulties, it also affects sensory processing, motor coordination, and even interoception (the ability to sense internal body signals like hunger or thirst). Some autistic people may struggle to recognize when they need to eat, drink, or use the restroom.

Autistic People Often Have a Unique Pain Response
Many autistic individuals experience pain differently than neurotypical people. Some may have a high pain tolerance and not notice injuries, while others may be hypersensitive to even mild discomfort. This can sometimes lead to challenges in medical care and self-awareness of health issues.

Dana F . 3/10/24 Dana F . 3/10/24

Happy Brain awareness Week, March 11-17

Brain Awareness Week is an annual global campaign aimed at increasing the public’s interest in brain health by shining a light on current brain science and research. The campaign was established by The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives to increase awareness of the importance of brain research.

Brain Awareness Week is awesome because it’s a powerful platform for promoting brain health, advancing scientific knowledge, and fostering a greater sense of empathy and understanding toward individuals living with neurological and mental health disorders.

There has been an increased interest in challenges with mental health due to COVID related health issues. These issues coupled with an aging population trying to find creative ways to maintain their cognitive health has led to increasing research in brain science.

Keeping your brain healthy involves more than just eating healthy. Your brain also needs exercise. We are talking about both physical and mental exercise. While physical exercise keeps your heart and longs delivering oxygen and nutrients to your brain, mental challenges are just as important to help keep your brain neurons firing.

Keeping your neurons active is just as important as keeping your muscles active. Your brain is like a muscle in that you need to “use it” to keep it healthy. By “use it”, we mean, challenge it by learning new things.

To learn more about brain health and Brain Awareness Week and why it is so important, check out the Dana Foundation at https://dana.org/brain-awareness-week/

Also, check out this short video from the Dana Foundation. https://youtu.be/j8gSV0gIxv4?si=R6FdmFsUIa1bz_iw It’s full of fun facts!

Dana F . 8/14/23 Dana F . 8/14/23

Forward Head posture and cognition

What do we mean by forward head posture?

Forward Head Posture refers to a person’s head being out of alignment with their spine due to their head being too far forward. This gives an individual an appearance of being slumped forward or having a hump on their upper back. It is a common postural issue that occurs in someone who works in a forward position like dentists, surgeons, or those who spend a lot of time on electronic devices. It can also be a sign of weak core muscles which could lead to a host of issues.

How does forward head posture effect cognition?

Over the years there have been a lot of studies about aging and declining posture. The results have shown cognitive decline associated with gait slowing and stooped posture. Recent research has indicated that postural alignment could be linked to poor cognitive function due to the disruption of blood flow and oxygen supplied to the brain.

The spine plays a big role in sensory input received from movement. If the spine is out of alignment, especially the neck where there are a lot of sensory receptors critical for sending movement information to the brain, posture and gait could be affected. This misalignment could alter activation to the brain from mechanoreceptors (movement receptors) throughout the body.

Another concern is that areas of the brain that are responsible for movement are also involved in higher-level learning. Dysfunction in these areas could result in issues with short-term memory, verbal skills, and logic and reasoning ability. Studies have also shown that misalignment can lead to issues with ADHD and ear infections too.

What can be done to reduce forward head posture?

Prolonged forward head posture can lead to lengthening of certain muscles and shortening or weakening of others. It is important to limit activities in this position and to make an effort to do strengthening and mobilization exercises that will help the core muscles keep the head in alignment with the spine and reverse the effect of this posture.

Dana F . 8/9/23 Dana F . 8/9/23

back to school; meltdowns

As kids go back to school, I hear a lot of stories about meltdowns and anxiety attacks. I often hear those around them say things like, “it happened for no reason” and “out of the blue, he just went crazy.” I can assure you, there is always a reason behind a meltdown. It may not be obvious at first but with a little analysis a cause will reveal itself. In understanding what is commonly referred to as a meltdown, it helps to know the basics about our brains and how they work.

The brain’s number one job is to keep us alive and safe. It does this by constantly scanning the environment to determine any threats to our safety. The brain is always consciously and subconsciously taking in sensory input and interpreting it for an appropriate response. Incoming sensory can include sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.

Think of a time when you felt your wellbeing might be in danger. Did you hear an unidentifiable sound, smell smoke, taste something spoiled, step on something sharp or maybe thought you saw a snake. In any of these instances your brain would send signals to your body to respond in a way it thought was appropriate. Usually, the level of response is equal to the level of perceived danger.

We rely on our brains ability to appropriately predict the level of threat. So, imagine if your brain struggled to interpret incoming sensory information. What if you interpreted everything as a threat because you could not accurately determine or predict what was happening around you.

For example, let’s say you are walking your dog at night. The streetlights keep most of your path well lit. You turn a corner and enter the small section of your neighborhood near a wooded area where there are no lights. You hear something in the trees next to you and remember the neighborhood watch group sending an email warning everyone about a bear sighting. You know you’re about to be face to face with a bear. Your brain is quickly scanning the environment and trying to decide the best survival tactic.

In those few moments before you can identify the threat, your brain is sending signals to increase your heart rate so you’ll have the adequate blood flow your muscles need to get you the heck out of there. Your breathing starts to increase as well. Just when you’re ready to run you realize, it’s just a deer.

You just relied on your brain’s ability to use past experience and current knowledge to determine what was happening and predict the best reaction for the given situation. But what if you couldn’t see that it was a deer. What if you took off in a full sprint toward your house screaming? The neighbor that just observed a deer step out of the woods and you fleeing may think your reaction was a bit much.

To you, your life was in danger. To your neighbor, you were overreactive. Please keep this in mind if you are around or have someone on the spectrum returning to school, especially if it is an unfamiliar environment. Familiarity and predictability make new environments less scary. Plan and prepare accordingly for smooth transitions.

If a meltdown occurs, please understand some level of fear was probably involved. Empathy and understanding will go a long way in helping to reduce meltdowns. Empowering your children by helping them understand and predict what is expected of them will also help to reduce unwanted behavior.

Best of luck for an awesome school year!

Dana F . 2/22/22 Dana F . 2/22/22

NeuroPlasticity

A formal definition of Neuroplasticity is, the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, usually in response to learning or life experiences or during recovery after a traumatic brain injury or stroke.

What I want to talk about is why you should be excited about plasticity. I want to acknowledge it’s role in your ability to change. By giving your brain the right stimulus through music, movement, visual stimulus with art, etc. all kinds of input can produce change in your brain. Neuroplasticity is our brain’s ability to rewire. It gives you the ability to learn new things.

So how and where is this change happening? Well, it depends. To explain it better we first have to understand that the brain has different sections or lobes that are responsible for different things. Let’s look at a couple of areas as examples of this. The back part of your brain known as the occipital lobe is mainly responsible for interpreting or processing vision. It’s responsible for visual perception like the color, form, and motion of objects.

The frontal lobe is known for executive function and emotional control. That is the ability to control urges and actions. When you are angry it is the ability to not act out. The ability to restrain from saying or doing something you would later regret.

So what is the point of acknowledging the different areas? Well when these areas are stimulated through input like music or movement the neurons responsible for processing that input become active or “fire” as we say. I’m sure some of us have heard the saying “what fires together wires together”. What that means, is that when different parts or areas of the brain fire at the same time over and over eventually they will develop a connection or wire together.

So why is this important?

Multiple areas of the brain must work together to complete an action or thought. The ability to speak involves several areas. You must have the ability to recall words, use those words in a specific order to formulate a coherent sentence and then motor plan to move the appropriate muscles to produce sound that is pronounced clearly and at an appropriate volume.

There is a lot going on there involving multiple areas of the brain. If you were to look at an MRI of the brain of an indvidual while they were speaking you would see that many different areas of their brain are firing. This is important in speech and language development in children. The development of speech is a great example of our brain changing and growing new connections.

An interesting fact about the different areas of the brain being assigned different tasks is that those areas of the brain can strengthen and grow in size when that specific area is targeted with input. I want to clarify, we’re not talking about the size of the brain increasing, we’re talking about a particular area taking over more real estate. For example, I own ten acres of land. I’m growing crops on one acre but I decide to use four acres to grow crops. I still only have ten acres I’m just dedicating a bigger area of that land to grow crops.

A great example of this is the study done on London taxi cab drivers. The streets of London were developed slowly over centuries so there was no urban design grid like you would usually find when planning the development of major cities like New York or DC. Finding your way around London before GPS would probably require a map in hand but in the case of a Taxi driver, a map in their head. Taxi drivers would train between two to four years to memorize the location of every street in the city. They basically had a spatial map of London in their head. The test given to drivers required the ability to not only know the most efficient route from A to B, but to recall landmarks one would see along the way.

A group from the University College of London were curious about the effect this kind of memorization would have on the brain. They looked particularly at an area called the hippocampus which is the part of the brain responsible for spatial intelligence. What they found is that London cab drivers have a significantly larger hippocampus than the average person. In fact, they found them to have larger hippocampi than almost anyone else they had looked at. They also found that as drivers retired and stopped relying on this spatial memory on a daily basis their hippocampus began to shrink back to a “normal” size. This is a great example of how constant input can have an effect on the brain.

Speaking of input changing the brain, lets take a quick look at a few therapies and the basic idea of neuroplasticity behind them. Let’s look at physical therapy for example, after someone has had a stroke and loses the ability to move a limb. Quick fact, the left side of our brain controls movement on the right side of our body and the right side of our brain controls movement on the left side of our body.

Now if you look a little closer at the frontal lobe it can be broken down into smaller sections that are involved in motor planning. If a traumatic brain injury (TBI) causes damage to the left premotor cortex area of the frontal lobe, which is the area that initiates movement for the right side, there may be a loss of ability to move the right side of the body. Some of the neuro connections that once allowed the brain to communicate with a particular area of the body may be damaged or broken. Depending on the severity of damage to that area of the brain, with the right stimulus or input connections may be reestablished. This is the goal of repetitive and consistent therapy after TBI or stroke.

When considering therapy it is important to note that there can be success in both habilitative and rehabilitative therapy. Rehabilitative therapy is when someone had a skill and lost it. The goal is to regain or restore the skill. Habilitative therapy is seen in helping an individual develop a skill which is often the case with speech therapy for children who are struggling to develop speech. In this case for whatever reason the appropriate connections or preprogrammed milestones for speech development were not made. With the right therapy or stimulation those connections can be developed and strengthened.

So I hope you enjoyed this little introduction to neuroplasticity and you are interested in learning more. There are so many stories out there about recovery after stroke or brain injury. If you found any of this interesting and are motivated to look at more examples of plasticity, I highly recommed reading Dr. Norman Doidge’s books, The Brain That Changes Itself and The Brain’s Way of Healing. These books are full of stories about individuals using their superpower, Neuroplasticity.

The Love of Brains Podcast