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Month: March 2019

Exclusion Diets

Exclusion Diets

Warning: I write this post with a minimal and superficial knowledge of the science of diet and nutrition.  I am obviously not in any way, shape, or form, qualified to give medical or dietary advice. You may have heard claims that autistic people need to exclude particular foods from our diets.  These exclusion diets are one of the most popular types of complementary & alternative medicine intervention in the autism world (Perrin et al., 2012).  Special diets may indeed be…

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Animal Models and Cognitive Models

Animal Models and Cognitive Models

I’ve previously written a post to complain about the behavioural assays that are used in research with mouse models of autism.  I’m seriously concerned that these tests just aren’t tapping into autistic behaviours, and that autistic development might be so complex and social in nature that animals like mice can’t really simulate it.  I therefore suggested that autism research with mouse models might be better limited to the molecular level. I think it’s possible to broaden this criticism a little. …

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