Tonight on the main evening news broadcast on an Australian commercial TV station there was a report about a repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation study of people with autism and AS that is apparently being conducted at the Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre which I beleive is run by The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia and Monash University.

I had many objections to the news report and the research study. The journalist presented this study as a potential cure for AS/autism, which is hype, most unlikely to be true and is also the wrong way to think about AS. The news report described AS as though it consists of an inability to read facial expressions and body language which is both incorrect and is also an attempt to grossly oversimplify the subject. I do not recall the report mentioning any possible risks to research participants. This TV report and much of the other media stories about this study have focused on one research participant, and I've got to wonder about the ethics of using one research participant to publicize a study through a number of media interviews, and to appear before the media as some type of representative of all Asperger syndrome "patients".

One big question that I have with regard to the publicity for this study is about mirror neurons. In the official hype about the study the resarchers write about mirror neurons as thought they will be directly viewing them through some type of technology - "We are using TMS and EEG to examine mirror neuron activation in autism and Asperger’s disorder, including the mirror neuron response to observations of socially-relevant movement." I thought that mirror neurons have not yet been directly observed in humans (but have been studied in monkeys). Could someone give more information on this point? If human mirror neurons still only have the status of a theoretical possibility, what are these researchers on about?

It was only a couple of days ago that the world was bombarded with a "shitstorm" of utterly absurd and insulting media hype in print and TV about an autism gene study with findings that weren't really a big deal at all. Now I see this rubbish on the main TV news! Enough already! Go stick your mirror neurons where the sun don't shine!

Links to research institition info about the study/studies(?)

http://www.med.monash.edu.au/spppm/resea...o-tms.html

http://www.med.monash.edu.au/spppm/resea...ject2.html

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00808782

Links to media stories about the research (some seem to be based on the same press release)

ABC media stories
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2513599.htm

http://m.abc.net.au/browse?page=11144&ar...69a36f4009

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/innovations/sto...547206.htm

And guess which popular Australian AS expert is helping to recruit study subjects? Oh yes, the smiling "professor".

http://www.tonyattwood.com.au/studies.html

I forgot to mention that Dr Peter Enticott and Prof. Paul Fitzgerald are some of the researchers in this study, and at least some of their work is funded by the "Cure Autism Now Foundation".

Cure Autism Now no longer exists. It was taken under the umbrella of Autism Speaks last year.

DAN! however, is still intact, and still spreading its dangerous biomed message.

Mirror Neurons in macaque monkeys (di Pellegrino et al 1992), and in humans (Fadiga et al, 1995) There is also Gallese et al (2004), Rizzollati et al (2001), Iacoboni et al (2005), Gallese et al (2006) and Rizollati et al (2009).

The last paper is probably the best.

rTMS is able to alter neural structure via LTP over time, in that regard if properly used it could be a "cure".

Atwood........ is the word "traitor" too strong?

What are you on Gareth?

Could I have some?

Do you HONESTLY believe any of this?

And why involve the only person who has ever given credence to AS?

I am discombobulated

I honestly can't believe I'm hearing this. 'Traitor' to the guy who gave AS a name and a place to be?

You have staggered and  seriously destroyed any faith I had in you.

And I DID have faith.

This is shameful.

You actually believed that idiot. Lili, who has been totally discredited on so many websites for her idiocy?

SHEESH!!!!!

It's a fact that Atwood is listing the TMS studies on his site and thus promoting them, it's also a fact that rTMS is able to alter neural structure.

The Aspergers family in Austria gave Aspergers its name via the original researchers family name around WW2. Having been to quite a few of Tony's seminars I can almost bet the guy has Aspergers himself.

As to rTMS being a "cure" if used, no. Aspergers is well and truly confirmed as genetic in origin via random mutation, so all something will do such as rTMS is relieve someone of some of the traits (it is NOT a disease, but quite possibly a useful random mutation), you can't "catch" it.

Of much more concern is the use of discovered genetic markers that can be used to quietly remove those carrying the gentic code. And this includes my entire family.

It doesn't matter that it's genetic, the structure of the brain can still be altered without touching the DNA. Neuron dendrites (oversimplifying this grossly) and synapses grow stronger with more stimulation - that's the basis of learning and the same method could be used to effectively rewire the brain to a degree. TMS is already getting more and more accurate with targeting smaller and smaller clusters of neurons, so it's just a matter of time.

More like new age ECT torture, that is my impression, it alters brain structure as well. So when the treatment is ended, the brain will revert since the body will still manufacture the protein via the genetics that gave rise to to the neural pathways in the first place rverting back to the normal condition that existed prior to the "treatment" in the first place.

I totally and fundamentally oppose so called ideas that claim a "cure" as that is not possible without destroying or eliminating someones DNA code. Eugenics (the real agenda) has been outlawed for all time (I hope!)

Rockit, the question was about the direct observation of mirror neurons in humans. I wasn't just asking about any papers on the subject. I want to know if any scientist has directly observed them or a "mirror-neuron system" in humans.

One paper published in a science journal last year outlined the many different types of problems that exist with "mirror neuron" research.
The language used implies that the existence of human mirror neuron systems had not yet been demonstrated at the time the paper was written.

Here are some quotes taken from this paper:

"Despite our claim that the adaptation protocol is a superior way of identifying candidate mirror system areas, however, we still were unable to demonstrate the existence of mirror neurons in the human brain as we did not find any cortical areas exhibiting cross-modal adaptation [11]. "

"If mirror neurons exist at all in the human brain, it is likely that they lie within these areas. We hope that future human mirror system studies use similar and novel protocols for assessing movement selective responses rather than relying on the circular reasoning commonly used to interpret imitation and passive movement observation experiment results."

"...the study of mirror neurons and the human mirror system in particular has been characterized by much speculation and relatively little hard evidence."

"Taken together, it is not obvious how a dysfunction in the human mirror system might account for the multiple behavioral and physiological characteristics of ASD. In fact, the general search for a unitary explanation (a missing link) capable of explaining all the ASD characteristics seems like a counterproductive direction for the field [34]."

Anyone can read the full text of this paper free online:

Dinstein, I, Thomas, C, Behrmann, M, & Heeger, D (2008) A mirror up to nature. Current Biology. Vol 18, R13-R18, 8th January 2008.
http://www.current-biology.com/content/a...back-bib33

I based my statement about CAN funding on information about the last study listed on this Monash University web page, which could well be out of date:

http://www.med.monash.edu.au/spppm/resea...ject2.html

How stupid of you, Rockit, to believe that anyone would be influenced by your baseless insults.

I gather you two have met!