What’s It Got To Do With Love?

Theories abound that link some thing—such as mercury in vaccines, as one autism mother notes—to the “onset” of autism in a child. When asked “when did you think your child had autism,” many parents tell a narrative of familiar elements: A child is born, a child develops normally until—one day, and overnight—the child changes drastically. Language is lost, gastrointestinal problems arise, behaviors of lining up toys and screaming at small changes in routines arise. Experts are sought, and the child is diagnosed with autism. And on of the billion dollar questions in autism discussions may well be, did something cause a sudden change or was a child always autistic, from birth, genetically? What caused the changes? What can make the child better?

Magic, according to the magician Teller (quoted in the August 21st New York Times in an article on the science of magic,” is

“The theatrical linking of a cause with an effect that has no basis in physical reality, but that — in our hearts — ought to.”

Many parents of autistic children indeed link a specific cause (such as mercury or a vaccine or an environmental agent) with an effect (a child becoming autistic). The question is, is that change (as many parents believe) a “physical reality” or is it something that “in our hearts” we think to be the case?

A recent study on oxytocin secretion and social behavior reviewed recently in Pharyngula provides another example of how cause and effect get linked in regard to autism. Oxytocin is sometimes called the “love hormone,” and seems to play a role in social and repetitive behaviors; researchers at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine have found that oxytocin may reduce some repetitive behaviors in autistic adults. According to Pharyngula,

The deficiencies in social behaviors in oxytocin-deficient animals is suggestive of a human disorder, autism. Studies have found reduced plasma levels of oxytocin in autistic individuals, but one has to worry about confusing cause and effect: oxytocin levels are modified by social interaction, too, and the diminished sociability of autistic people may be indirectly reducing their oxytocin secretion, rather than reduced oxytocin secretion impairing their social interactions [my emphasis]. There are a few studies that show some amelioration of the effects of autism by intravenous transfusion of oxytocin, though, which is suggestive. Don’t get too hopeful, though, since at best what was seen was a mild reduction of some of the symptoms. (Hey! Maybe they have to try the mind-altering virus approach!)

Do persons with autism have reduced oxytocin levels, and, if so, might this affect their capacity for attachment and even for love? Or (as Pharyngula suggests), is it not that something intrinsic about autism leads to “diminished sociability,” and that this itself reduces the secretion of oxytocin?

Yet another chicken and egg sort of question in regard to the causes of autism and about what might help a child.

My own theory (if it could even be considered such) is that my son Charlie very much wants to be social and likes the company of others. But his ways of indicating this are what some call “anti-social” or “unusual” and other less pleasant terms. Charlie has been very glad to see our friend Hal on this vacation. When it was time for Hal to go home this afternoon, Charlie tried to pull off his shoes and makes Hal lie down on the couch; Charlie tried to spread one of his favorite blankets over Hal. “We’ll see in October, Hal has to go home, Hal has to go to work!” we told Charlie, who spent much of the rest of the afternoon standig in the driveway on the lookout for Hal’s white car to return. Charlie may also have been on the lookout because the wife of another houseguest left early this morning before Charlie got up; she has a certain resemblance to my mom, Charlie’s “PoPo” (Cantonese for “maternal grandmother”) and I think he missed her, too.

No, I have not been slipping Charlie any mini-doses of oxytocin: His sociability, his wanting to connect, is Charlie’s own.

It is from is heart.