From an Age to an Era

The neuropolitical shift in our understanding of autism, from a pre-programmed disorder to an emergent, processual condition, speaks not only to the failure of genetic and molecular therapeutic interventions, but to a wealth of observational data implicating diet, sleep, activity, nurturing, and environmental factors in the modulation of autism.[1]

While it is heartening to see from Herbert’s articles that infants are no longer summarily institutionalized, the burden of brain-training specifically and lifestyle management generally that comes with an emphasis on neuroplasticity will fall on individuals and their mothers in our society.[2] At the same time, reframing autism as an emergent, processual condition may put far more people at risk, or, to put it another way, may facilitate the inclusion of a far greater portion of the population in the spectrum.

Finally, convincing the public to start thinking in terms of epigenetic interventions may not be that straightforward, but it isn’t impossible to see the connections between the current growth in the gluten-free industry and future campaigns that teach people how to recognize subtle symptoms of ‘pizza psychosis.’ How does one make a healthier planet one millisecond-at-a-time, though? Will that necessarily shift the population’s baseline of health?