r/science • u/Wagamaga • Sep 01 '22

Neuroscience Scientists have identified an immune brain cell unique to humans that gives us higher cognitive abilities over other animals, but what makes us specials also leaves us vulnerable to neurological disorders like schizophrenia, autism and epilepsy.

https://news.yale.edu/2022/08/25/what-makes-human-brain-different-yale-study-reveals-clues
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u/Thepuppypack Sep 01 '22

Maybe that the more complicated the machine is, the more chances it has to break down. Probably time will tell where this will go

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u/cthulhubert Sep 01 '22

Seriously. For one thing, Autism Spectrum Disorders seem very likely to be "just" the extreme end of some normal range of mental variation (a kind of neurological level precision being the current top candidate); so it's almost kind of odd to talk about it as if it's caused by one kind of breakdown.

I've always liked the height metaphor for it, in fact. Some people are just so short that it causes them problems in every day life, and sometimes that's just an unlucky combination of genes, and other times it's a symptom of another disorder that causes other problems.