Computer science may solve the mystery of autism
http://www.psypost.org/2013/02/network-analysis-of-the-brain-may-explain-features-of-autism-16683 Network? analysis of the brain may explain features of autism Boston Children's Hospital | February 27, 2013 | Autistic disorders / 1 comment A look at how the brain processes information finds a distinct pattern in children with autism spectrum disorders. Using EEGs to track the brain? electrical cross-talk, researchers from Boston Children? Hospital have found a structural difference in brain connections. Compared with neurotypical children, those with autism have multiple redundant connections between neighboring brain areas at the expense of long-distance links. The study, using a ?etwork analysis? like that used to study airlines or electrical grids, may help in understanding some classic behaviors in autism. It was published February 27 in BioMed Central? open access journal BMC Medicine, accompanied by a commentary. ?e examined brain networks as a whole in terms of their capacity to transfer and process information,? says Jurriaan Peters, MD, of the Department of Neurology at Boston Children? Hospital, who is co-first author of the paper with Maxime Taquet, a PhD student in Boston Children? Computational Radiology Laboratory. ?hat we found may well change the way we look at the brains of autistic children.? Peters, Taquet and senior authors Simon Warfield, PhD, of the Computational Radiology Laboratory and Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD, of Neurology, analyzed EEG recordings from two groups of autistic children: 16 children with classic autism, and 14 children whose autism is part of a genetic syndrome known as tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). They compared these readings with EEGs from two control groups?46 healthy neurotypical children and 29 children with TSC but not autism. In both groups with autism, there were more short-range connections within different brain region, but fewer connections linking far-flung areas. A brain network that favors short-range over long-range connections seems to be consistent with autism? classic cognitive profile? child who excels at specific, focused tasks like memorizing streets, but who cannot integrate information across different brain areas into higher-order concepts. ?or example, a child with autism may not understand why a face looks really angry, because his visual brain centers and emotional brain centers have less cross-talk,? Peters says. ?he brain cannot integrate these areas. It? doing a lot with the information locally, but it? not sending it out to the rest of the brain.? Network analysis? hot emerging branch of cognitive neuroscience?howed a quality called ?esilience? in the children with autism?he ability to find multiple ways to get from point A to point B through redundant pathways. ?uch like you can still travel from Boston to Brussels even if London Heathrow is shut down, by going through New York? JFK airport for example, information can continue to be transferred between two regions of the brain of children with autism,? says Taquet. ?n such a network, no hub plays a specific role, and traffic may flow along many redundant routes.? This quality of redundancy is consistent with cellular and molecular evidence for decreased ?runing? of brain connections in autism. While it may be good for an airline, it may indicate a brain that responds in the same way to many different kinds of situations and is less able to focus on the stimuli that are most important. ?t? a simpler, less specialized network that? more rigid, less able to respond to stimulation from the environment,? says Peters. The study showed that both groups of children with tuberous sclerosis complex had reduced connectivity overall, but only those who also had autism had the pattern of increased short-range versus long-range connections (See image). Under a recently announced NIH Autism Center of Excellence Grant, Peters and his colleagues will repeat the analysis as part of a multicenter study, taking EEG recordings prospectively under uniform conditions. The current study builds on recent work by Peters, Sahin and colleagues, which imaged nerve fibers in autistic patients and showed structural abnormalities in brain connectivity. Other recent work at Boston Children?, led by Frank Duffy, PhD, of Neurology, looked at ?oherence,? or the degree of synchrony between any two given EEG signals, and found altered connectivity between brain regions in children with autism. Yet another recent study, led by Boston Children? informatics researcher William Bosl, PhD, and Charles A. Nelson, PhD, research director of the Developmental Medicine Center, looked at the degree of randomness in EEG signals, an indirect indicator of connectivity, and found patterns that distinguished infants at increased risk for autism from controls. http://dougsamu.wordpress.com doug rogers Investigate
A modern theodicy based on noise
A modern theodicy based on noise Leibniz developed a theodicy based on his two logics of necessity and contingency, where contingency or lack of order is responsible for the sometimes chaotic nature of life down here. Even so, Leibniz said, since God is good, he made the best world possible from all of the choices he had. Reflecting on this, it appears to me that evil and suffering are just noise in an imperfect universe. Dr. Roger B Clough NIST (ret.) [1/1/2000] See my Leibniz site at http://independent.academia.edu/RogerClough -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Which one result in maths has surprised you the most?
Now for me the most surprising thing is Homotophy type theory that unifies spaces, proofs, computations and category theory in a different foundation for mathematics. Redefine a proof as the existence of paths that connect objects in a space with homological properties, but not distances. It is constructive and it is free from the Russell paradox and the Gödel paradox, since type theory where made with this purpose (and set theory is a particular case). http://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/whats-the-big-deal-with-hott/ 2013/7/6 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2949/which-one-result-in-maths-has-surprised-you-the-most -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Study Links Autism With Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy
http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/study-links-autism-with-antidepressant-use-during-pregnancy/ April 22, 2013, 11:57 am Study Links Autism With Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy By KJ DELL'ANTONIA A cautiously worded study based on data collected in Sweden has found that “in utero exposure to both selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (S.S.R.I.’s) and nonselective monoamine reuptake inhibitors (tricyclic antidepressants) was associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorders, particularly without intellectual disability.” The Swedish medical birth register (which contains data on current drug use reported by mothers early in their pregnancies), along with a system of publicly funded screenings for autism spectrum disorders and extensive national and regional registers of various health issues, make a detailed, population-based case-control study possible — one that controls for other variables like family income, parent educational level, maternal and paternal age and even maternal region of birth (all factors the authors note have been previously associated with autism). This is the second study in two years to associate antidepressant use during pregnancy with an increased incidence of autism in exposed children. An earlier, smaller study in California also found a modest increase in risk. The Sweden-based study could not (and did not) exclude the possibility that it was the severe depression, rather than the use of antidepressants, that created the association, but the smaller California study (which considered only S.S.R.I.’s) found “no increase in risk” for mothers with a history of mental health treatment in the absence of prenatal exposure to S.S.R.I.’s. The authors of the current study took a very cautious approach to their findings: The results of the present study as well as the U.S. study present a major dilemma in relation to clinical advice to pregnant women with depression. If antidepressants increase the risk of autism spectrum disorder, it would be reasonable to warn women about this possibility. However, if the association actually reflects the risk of autism spectrum disorder related to the nongenetic effects of severe depression during pregnancy, treatment may reduce the risk. Informed decisions would also need to consider weighing the wider risks of untreated depression with the other adverse outcomes related to antidepressant use. With the current evidence, if the potential risk of autism were a consideration in the decision-making process, it may be reasonable to think about, wherever appropriate, nondrug approaches such as psychological treatments. However, their timely availability to pregnant women will need to be enhanced. Others working in the field are more inclined to draw a line between the prenatal drug exposure and the increased risk of autism. “It really shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise given that numerous animal studies have shown that exposure during development leads to changes in the brain and changes in behavior — often that mimic autism,” said Dr. Adam C. Urato, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Tufts University School of Medicine and chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at MetroWest Medical Center in Framingham, Mass. (Dr. Urato obviously didn’t speak in links, but you can find the animal studies he refers to here and here.) “And why should it surprise us that medications that can change brain chemistry and function might alter the development of the brain and behavior?” Dr. Urato argues that the risks of antidepressant use during pregnancy outweigh what he sees as the limited benefits. One conclusion that is simple to draw is that it’s extraordinarily difficult for a pregnant woman with clinical depression to find some definitive answer about what’s best for her in her situation. I’ve spoken to other researchers in the past who have described for me how difficult it is to put together a study that separates the risks of depression itself in pregnancy from the risks, if any, of the drugs used to treat it. As the researchers in Sweden note, it’s unlikely that conclusive evidence on this issue will ever be available. If you’ve been pregnant with clinical depression, where did you go to find the information and advice you needed? Updated | May 29, 2013: An earlier version of this update quantified the “modest” increase in attributable risk as 0.6 percent in the studied population. While Dr. Dheeraj Rai, one of the authors of the study, confirmed this figure, a number of readers and medical professionals raised questions. So we went back to Dr. Rai for further explanation. Here is what he wrote: “The subject of antidepressant use during pregnancy, and any possible association with autism, is one that understandably evokes great emotion — even more so because at the current stage we don’t have a definitive answer. Readers of our
Neuroscience about Newton
Lovely quotes from Michael S. Gazzaniga, Who’s in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain that show how physics is made. “I can’t Believe My Eyes! In moment-to-moment activity, the interpreter [in the brain] is always dealing with the changing inputs from sites in the brain where activity is going on. Sitting under the apple tree, Isaac Newton, indulging in that most human traits to constantly seek explanations and causes for things, asked himself, ‘Why did the apple fall down? H … Nothing pushed it. Why doesn’t it go up?’ Newton was engaging in two different types of processing concerned with causality, and we have found one type occurs in right hemisphere, and the other in the left.” “So when Newton observed that the apple fell but perceived no observable interaction that caused it, he was using his right hemisphere. For other animals, that is the end of the story. But it was not good enough for Newton. He went to employ causal inference, the application of logical rules, which, as you may have guessed, is a bailiwick of the left hemisphere.” Evgenii -- http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2013/07/neuroscience-about-newton.html -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Which one result in maths has surprised you the most?
That 1+2+3+4+5+..to infinity equals minus 1/12 On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 4:40 AM, Alberto G. Corona agocor...@gmail.comwrote: Now for me the most surprising thing is Homotophy type theory that unifies spaces, proofs, computations and category theory in a different foundation for mathematics. Redefine a proof as the existence of paths that connect objects in a space with homological properties, but not distances. It is constructive and it is free from the Russell paradox and the Gödel paradox, since type theory where made with this purpose (and set theory is a particular case). http://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/whats-the-big-deal-with-hott/ 2013/7/6 Telmo Menezes te...@telmomenezes.com http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2949/which-one-result-in-maths-has-surprised-you-the-most -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- Alberto. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: John Leslie's 'Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology'
On 07 Jul 2013, at 04:41, meekerdb wrote: On 7/6/2013 3:51 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Atheists are usually just slightly more dishonest when talking like if science was on their side, which is a mockery of what is science at the start. Atheists think science is on their side because the common monotheisms demand faith in ancient myths and they murdered and tortured people for teaching what is now common scienctific knowledge. You might confuse religion and clericalism. I don't think there is scientific knowledge per se. Only beliefs which might or not be true. Only when refuted we can bet they are locally false. Bruno I'd think someone named Bruno would be more aware of that. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
On 07 Jul 2013, at 07:28, meekerdb wrote: http://www.salon.com/2013/07/06/god_is_not_great_christopher_hitchens_is_not_a_liar/ I love Christopher Hitchens. I agree with many points. He is more an anticlerical than an atheist to me ... Bruno Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: John Leslie's 'Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology'
On 7/7/2013 6:55 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 07 Jul 2013, at 04:41, meekerdb wrote: On 7/6/2013 3:51 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: Atheists are usually just slightly more dishonest when talking like if science was on their side, which is a mockery of what is science at the start. Atheists think science is on their side because the common monotheisms demand faith in ancient myths and they murdered and tortured people for teaching what is now common scienctific knowledge. You might confuse religion and clericalism. And you might confuse mysticism and religion. I don't think there is scientific knowledge per se. Only beliefs which might or not be true. Only when refuted we can bet they are locally false. Like the Earth is flat and has four corners? Like rain is water that is not held back by the firmament? Like disease is caused by impiety and sin? Like God punishes mankind with death for having sought knowledge? Brent Religion has the exact same job assignment as science, to make sense of the world, that's why science and religion can never co exist peacefully. Science changes its stories based on better evidence, religion writes its stories on stone tablets. --- Bob Zannelli -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
On 7/7/2013 6:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: On 07 Jul 2013, at 07:28, meekerdb wrote: http://www.salon.com/2013/07/06/god_is_not_great_christopher_hitchens_is_not_a_liar/ I love Christopher Hitchens. I agree with many points. He is more an anticlerical than an atheist to me ... Everybody called him an atheist. He called himself an atheist. I think you just don't like the term. Brent -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Everything List group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: Hitch
On 08/07/2013, at 10:45 AM, meekerdb meeke...@verizon.net wrote:
On 7/7/2013 6:56 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
On 07 Jul 2013, at 07:28, meekerdb wrote:
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/06/god_is_not_great_christopher_hitchens_is_not_a_liar/
I love Christopher Hitchens. I agree with many points. He is more an
anticlerical than an atheist to me ...
Everybody called him an atheist. He called himself an atheist. I think you
just don't like the term.
Brent
Forgivable though, don't you think? I used to call MYself an atheist too -
until, bless me, I ran into the machine theology of one B. Marchal. Atheism
seemed rather dull after a while, compared to this exciting new perspective on
reality which ties in with quantum mechanics, mathematics, logic, computer
science, and, as the Americans say, Christ knows what all. The reason some of
us don't want to call Hitch an atheist is because that tars him with the wrong
brush: the brush of public religion - IF you can handle the comp definition of
atheism as a sibling public religion of the Jesus cult. I mean - either you
believe in Big Daddy, JC and Spooky or you do not. If you don't believe in that
trio, then you have no right (if you are an Englishman, that is) to believe in
Mohammed and flying horses etc. An Englishman (essentially a racist entity) is
going to have to bite the bullet and be an Atheist if he can't stand Xtianity.
Public religions are about ethnicity and the power-groups that arise from
tribalism - do not be fooled. Public religions are political parties; it's just
that they do not appear on ballot papers because God Always Wins.
Let me clarify: there is organised ('public' or 3-p) religion (Jesus and his
pals, Mohammed and his pals, Yaweh and his pals, Buddha and his pals and - for
many - there is always football.) And, there is personal (1-p) religion. Every
single one of us, even if we don't know it or believe it to be the case - has
the latter because the only authentic definition of 'personal religion' is
what you believe.
I do not believe that any two people can Believe the exact same thing in
terms of ultimate things, because there is only a very little shareable
component to ANY first person experience, right? We can't even agree whether
some bloody thing is green, turquoise, aquamarine or blue let alone shake hands
on what some unseen supernatural Sky Daddy is all about.
Hitchens was religious only in the personal sense, but then we all are - it's
impossible not to believe something. Hitchens' signing on to the public
religion of atheism was the same as my acting AS THOUGH I am a devout atheist
in my daily public doings (I slag off at theocrats, clerics and the whole
pedophilic secret-enclave corporate structure of the Catholic Church - exactly
as the Late Great Hitch did so punishingly and eloquently whenever he could)
yet, in private - and talking to you lot (which, strangely enough seems to be
much the same thing) I will admit to leaps of faith with regard to my
personal beliefs, but now that I understand why I have to make these LOF
(that's thrown in for John Clark) I don't get embarrassed by them anymore.
Kim
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