I agree with you

Hi,

On the contrary, there are multiple abnormalities in this neurodevelopmental disorder in most of the parameters that you mentioned. kindly read through Comprehensive text book of Psychiatry by Kaplan and Sadock and neurodevelopmental disorder in children books. A few:

There are numerous journals in this subject area.

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders

Autism Research and Treatment

Databases:

https://hallam.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/assia

https://hallam.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.scopus.com/

https://www-proquest-com.hallam.idm.oclc.org/psycinfo?accountid=13827

https://hallam.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.sciencedirect.com

This study discuss findings from MRI studies that while there are differences in the grey matter, the difference are not the same when comparing Asperger v Autism:

"An ALE meta-analysis of grey matter differences in studies of Asperger syndrome or autism supports the argument against the disorder being considered solely a milder form of autism in neuroanatomic terms. Whereas grey matter differences in people with Asperger syndrome are indeed more sparse than those reported in studies of people with autism, the distribution and direction of differences in each category is distinctive. Asperger syndrome involves clusters of lower grey matter volume in the right hemisphere and clusters of greater grey matter volume in the left hemisphere. Autism leads to more extensive bilateral excess of grey matter. Both conditions share clusters of grey matter excess in the left ventral temporal lobe components of the extrastriate visual system. This summary of a rich VBM MRI data set has important implications for how we categorize people on the autism spectrum and cautions that mixing individuals with autism and Asperger syndrome may at times obscure important characteristics manifested in one or the other condition alone."

Yu KK, Cheung C, Chua SE, McAlonan GM. Can Asperger syndrome be distinguished from autism? An anatomic likelihood meta-analysis of MRI studies. J Psychiatry Neurosci. 2011 Nov;36(6):412-21. doi: 10.1503/jpn.100138. PMID: 21406158; PMCID: PMC3201995.

As someone with Asperger syndrome, I find the evolutionary psychology theory on neurodivergence more plausible than the theory of neuro-disorder.

"There is no general consensus on specific neuroimaging features of autism;"Article Brain MRI in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Narrative Review and ...

There is no lesion & no pathophysiologic mechanism in any update worldwide known prestigious medical textbooks ! So until there is a proven lesion(s) & net pathophysiologic mechanism(s), what can be said about autism ? Currently in my opinion it seems to be just a spectrum of atypical psychosocial behaviour disorder !?

There is overwhelming MRI evidence that Autism is associated with, and correlates with, atypical brain connectivity (of almost any sort). There is also parallel evidence that this is reflected in, and correlates with, the degree to which the individual's cognitive abilities depart from the "gravitational pull" of intellectual g. In other words, intellectual abilities in autism are invariably extremely uneven compared to the general population - and this correlates strongly with the intensity of measured trait levels both in clinical and non-clinical individuals. It is unfortunate that Autism has for so long been seen as a specific category of neurodivergence causing a specific social problem. It now seems much more likely that "it" is actually a reflection of ANY significant disruption to the "standard" model of cognitive integration - and that "it" has been thought of as a social disorder because it is only really noticeable when the individual engages in the social world. That is to say, the only universal feature in autism is the atypical nature of the individual's social interaction - but it is probably a mistake to keep searching for a faulty "social" component of the mind. We have been trying that without convincing results for about 80 years.

The question is based on the confusion between syndrome and disease concepts. Autism is not a disease, nobody says that. Austism is a "bunch of symptoms" definition, a disorder, a neurodisability (always on a syndromic level of signs and symptoms). We know the specific cause of Autism (disease level) on around 20% of patients, most of them Genetic Diseases, like Fragile-X. We also know that a lot of neurodevelopmental abnormalities occur in brain growth, cortex folding, microbiome, metabolome...in most patients with Autism, and also biological risk factors like prematurity and parental age.

In my opinion our poor understanding of the complex synaptogensys in human development explains our lack of understanding of the causes of the condition. And I think that the concept of "Autism Spectrum Disorders" is very helpful for those who care patients and students suffering from these social disability conditions.

All psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders are syndromes, not diseases. Autism is not a disease, it is a syndrome with several etiologies. It is very common to confuse syndrome with disease but they are separate entities. For example, autism, like cerebral palsy, is a syndrome that is defined exclusively on the basis of its clinical characteristics and each syndrome can be caused by various diseases. For example, cerebral palsy can be caused by genetic and non-genetic diseases, autism usually has a genetic origin (unknown or known, such as fragile X or neurocutaneous diseases) but there are also non-genetic diseases that can cause autism, such as congenital rubella or toxoplasmosis. The diseases have a common base, which is the etiology, while the common base of the syndromes is the pathogenesis. Another fundamental difference is that the syndromes are not categorical (black and white) as the diseases and they are distributed in a continuum that goes from the normal to the frankly pathological, and the difference between the normal and the pathological is arbitrary (such as short stature) or arterial hypertension (which are also syndromes).

All the best,

I recommend some papers:

Article Classification of Behaviorally Defined Disorders: Biology Ve...

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Article Editorial: The role of the brainstem and cerebellum in autis...

Article The “Primitive Brain Dysfunction” Theory of Autism: The Supe...

Article Autism Pathogenesis: The Superior Colliculus