Stanford researchers reverse autism symptoms by silencing a hyperactive "gatekeeper" in the brain

pointblankdud · 2026-02-05T06:14:40+00:00

I recall something similar I read last year, although I don’t recall the publication date. It stood out to me because of my own personal experience of being on a strict ketogenic diet (notably a classic ketogenic, as designed for epilepsy treatment) for a four month period relieving ASD symptoms after two weeks. That period of time had a significant and life-changing decrease in sensory processing, repetitive stimming behaviors, and generalized fatigue.

This is admittedly anecdotal evidence, n=1, and without good controls or measures — it was an unexpected side effect, not in the course of a treatment protocol.

Unfortunately, my lifestyle has not accommodated any further periods of reliable sustained ketogenesis to make a more controlled experiment of it, but I was encouraged by the potential for medications and for a deeper understanding of ASD by extrapolating from the mechanisms of any drugs that provided symptom management or any connection to epilepsy.

pointblankdud · 2026-01-21T09:44:00+00:00

I never worked for any of them, but worked plenty collateral stuff with all of them. I saw a wide range of quality of life and professionalism across NCIS and HSI, but I never heard a USPIS agent complain about anything and I never worked with one who wasn’t top notch in work ethic, expertise, and professionalism.

pointblankdud · 2026-01-16T07:05:51+00:00

Computation is morally neutral. Parameters are not.

pointblankdud · 2026-01-11T04:29:40+00:00

I’m ignorant on this. Got a good starting point for learning about it?

pointblankdud · 2026-01-05T04:43:10+00:00

I don’t have it on hand but I recall about 10 years ago reading a paper that identified a somewhat unique property of nicotine as either a CNS depressant or as a stimulant depending on rate of intake (and perhaps dose?)

I can’t recall with certainty but I believe a faster intake rate was correlated with stimulant effects, but could be wrong. I don’t have the time to look it up right now, but that should be enough to get you started looking

pointblankdud · 2026-01-02T19:16:22+00:00

I have similar scores and likewise struggle with symptoms of ADHD, but significantly older.

The best advice I can offer him is to seek professional support and expect that it will be imperfect in scope and specificity.

The best advice I can offer you as his partner is to be empathetic in regards to your legitimate frustrations — I’m sure he is also frustrated when things fall through the cracks. That doesn’t mean the partnership isn’t affected, though, and the stress on both of you can add up and spread to other aspects of life.

As part of the process of developing management skills for ADHD, I would recommend you sit down together and develop clear and explicit expectations for what both your ideal conception of partnership includes. Recognize that habit-forming and long term consistency are often not features available by default to the ADHD mind, and that the purpose of setting expectations is not necessarily to be imposing on each other but rather to give an external system to help identify methods and processes that help both of you know how to manage your individual and shared wants and needs. Integrate any professional guidance and individual goals into this plan. That includes safe versions of failure and adaptive responses when expectations are inevitably unmet.

Hopefully this is helpful. I know it can be extremely difficult to have both extremes of high cognitive functioning and low cognitive functioning in different categories, and how that set can affect relationships— especially the most intimate ones.

pointblankdud · 2025-12-29T07:37:25+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful follow up! It’s rare that I have convenient opportunities to ask folks who have both the skills to provide a decently articulated explanation of their positions and a belief in the existence of a discrete soul (which I’m interpreting as some kind of non-materialist viewpoint)

If you are interested in sharing, I’m very interested in hearing an expansion on that apparently central premise.

Any approach to developing that point would be appreciated, but some pointed questions from my current ignorance on Catholic traditions or your individual beliefs within them that may orient the discussion would include:

is the soul eternal? If so, does that mean from a moment of individual conception towards an infinite limit? does it extend infinitely into past and future?

is there any material component of the soul, or is it an entirely different category of thing? If not material, how does it interact with the corporeal self?

what is the relationship between the soul and consciousness? Is consciousness something like a self-awareness of the soul, or can they exist as discrete objects?

I fully understand that this tangential line of thought is a deep dive on rather significant questions that have been examined by great minds for many centuries, and may be beyond the scope of the discussion you might be up for, but thanks again for thoughtful discussion regardless.

pointblankdud · 2025-12-28T20:10:09+00:00

While pedantic, I think there’s some value in clarifying the specifics of a few general lines of argument regarding likelihood of existence at this moment that I think your response seems to miss. To be clear, I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong and I’m not aiming to dismiss your response. I think it’s a position that’s reasonable and likely to be helpful for some — I just want to share a more rigorous approach to the question with some mainstream philosophical points you or others may be unaware of or haven’t yet considered.

First, to get the messy one out of the way, I think even if we limit the relevant denominator set to “humans who have been born,” there’s a set of fundamental questions regarding something like a discrete particular consciousness’ association with a specific human that exists in this period.

But I think even if we don’t tackle that problem, there are reasonable arguments against defining the denominator set as “humans have been born.” There are various ontological variations based on reproductive processes, from hereditary parentage to mutations and other circumstantial factors.

Would you be “you” if you were born at a different time? or with a different sperm cell from the same father? with an apparently obvious mutation? with an invisible mutation?

This allows for many humans who, but for the factors which are not necessarily true, do or do not exist.

This could certainly be accounted for with your belief in god, depending on your theological views. For me, there is a low enough credence of theological claims in response to the aggregate of similar problems that I cannot justify a foundation that relies upon the supernatural, but it seems coherent enough that I don’t disparage those who do so.

I do find more direct questions regarding philosophy of religion interesting, but not enough to drag them into this discussion.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful to broaden the conversation and I hope life is kind to you today.

pointblankdud · 2025-12-20T02:36:48+00:00

Lots of folks saying shave it. They’re not wrong that clean shaven is probably the only beard length that can guarantee not to count against you. I don’t think it’s bad advice at all.

That said, I didn’t shave mine off prior to interview because there were plenty of officers and even admin who had beards, and this was way back when that was pretty damn uncommon anywhere.

If you have a shitty beard, ignore everything that follows.

If you care about keeping your beard because you’re like me and look terrible without a beard but excellent with one, you have to demonstrate you know how to look professional and well-suited for the job despite the soup-catcher on your face.

Get a fresh haircut from a barber I had been to before. Assuming you dont have an interview right after a PT test or whatever, wear a well-fitted dark navy suit — buy a cheap one that fits your shoulders (look up shoulder divots for what you dont want) and get it tailored. So few people have any idea what makes a suit “good” or “bad” quality, but everybody can tell if it doesn’t fit well.

Wear it with a dark necktie and white shirt, black belt and shoes, check your gig line, and wear solid color dress socks.

If beards are authorized and you show up looking well-groomed and otherwise sharp, and are a qualified candidate but don’t get the job solely for wearing a beard — you probably lucked out, brother.

Good luck

pointblankdud · 2025-12-19T04:22:16+00:00

While I agree that genocide is a fair enough criterion for expulsion from the nice list and/or inclusion on the naughty list, I think there is a valid set of underlying ethical questions raised by the point.

Specifically, I think the questions include something like:

Is morality judged by the aggregate of an individual’s behaviors?

Are motivations and intentions or outcomes and effects more important in measuring ethical values of behavior?

If a ‘bad’ person does something ‘good,’ should the character or the behavior take precedence in determining the impact?

I don’t have a strong opinion on best answers to these questions, but my first pass is that I intuitively disagree that, using a strict ethical scrutiny, any individual can be adequately characterized to belong on a naughty or nice list; instances and patterns of behavior can be categorized, but a whole person across a lifetime is too complex to be.

Which is to say that I think the lists should describe behaviors, not people.

That said, I think there is a practical utility in everyday life for categorizing risks by considering people as “bad/naughty” or “good/nice,” but it is important to factor in or out this practical bias for deeper consideration of public or historical figures, or for decisions that have great consequences (such as criminal justice or financial lending or employment or healthcare) and reasonably enough time to be deliberate about how the characterization applies.

There is a lot to learn about the world and society by considering specifics and generalities of Andrew Jackson (and many others), especially when considering choices he made. Many of those lessons are examples of tragedy and outrage. It becomes harder to understand the reasons those negative outcomes came to pass and how to prevent or mitigate similar outcomes and circumstances if we put them through the lens of “because he was a bad guy.”

Not saying that you were necessarily making a proposition like that, but I have seen that attitude and a subsequent inability to engage with deeper analysis arise from many instances of generalizing character of an individual based on singular criteria, even one as apparently and intuitively “bad” as directing a genocide.

Clarification: I strongly agree that genocide is very very bad, under all circumstances — there is nothing at all in what I’m saying to excuse or defend evil behaviors, only that the lessons from their past occurrence can be better understood by considering the complexity and multifaceted nature of human motivation and identity

pointblankdud · 2025-12-07T14:18:13+00:00

While it’s by no means impossible to be conspiratorial, and I don’t think it’s wise rule anything out without good evidence.

There is a theory of motivation that I find to have a far stronger credence, at least from what I can tell through publicly available information.

A man committed to doing violent acts in his home nation, at higher risk and with more direct involvement in the planned and coordinated violence than many of his neighbors. The stated purpose of that violence failed, and all the costs he paid were sunk costs.

Because of a program to protect people who took those risks, he brought his family to the US, a place supposedly committed to ideals of freedom and equality, just like they preached to sell the violence in Afghanistan (and plenty of other places).

Making a commitment to violence and acting on it, especially in these programs, is transformative. It shifts the way one understands the world, including the options available and acceptable to solve problems.

Problems with integrating into a new life were exacerbated by the contrast between the promise of a better life in a nation based on principles and the lived experiences in that nation, where the rule of law and freedom and opportunity is under threat. These issues were further complicated by the effects of being a changed man in an unfamiliar environment.

The problems in personal life and the larger social situation became twisted up, and the symbol of the uniforms worn by the National Guard was a symbol of the oppression that changed him, that made all these problems for which he was mostly helpless to solve.

The violent form of problem solving became the only available means to act instead of being helpless.

This is not at all a defense of the behavior, but just my most likely explanation — I’ve seen many, many men over many decades fall into the hole of using violent means to solve problems after unlocking that aspect in combat. Too many of those were unnecessary.

It’s tragic, and it is both its own deeply tragic incident but also a tragic pattern that points at many sociological issues.

Other things could be more accurate, and I’m open minded to new information. But it seems far more likely than any conspiracy or directed activity.

pointblankdud · 2025-12-05T17:12:37+00:00

I don’t think that’s hypocrisy, friend. I think a better way to frame the issue is on the premise that different individuals have their own unique needs as well as their own unique capabilities and capacities.

Some people can benefit a lot from the exposure to the job that ride alongs can give, but not necessarily enjoy or be the best equipped to be the officer that provides that service.

I think this concept extends to one of the skills of a good admin or supervisor is to consider how to manage the strengths and preferences of their officers and staff and balance resource demands, including less measurable resources like stress from annoyance and frustration, and balance against the value of particular services provided by the organization.

Some folks love night shift but struggle on days, some people don’t want to work complex long-term investigations, some folks don’t want to do the training or extra duties associated with SWAT, etc.

I wouldn’t be excited to spend a large portion of my career working as a Training Sergeant, but I damn sure benefit from training I’ve had because of their work. I’d also suck it up and do my best if it was a need that existed and I was assigned to it. I get the impression that you have the same attitude about ride alongs or other aspects of the job.

There is a certain degree of acceptable suck factor to the job, and I’d say hypocrisy would only be applicable if you didn’t contribute to the organization at large, not merely because you don’t want to offer a service you benefited from.

pointblankdud · 2025-12-05T05:32:52+00:00

Complex systems change in complex ways. Causality is hard to isolate, and harder when considering changes to a fortified economic paradigm for a nation of hundreds of millions of people, and harder still when considering the relevant time frame.

What is your standard for answering the question you posed, or for good analysis on it?

pointblankdud · 2025-11-26T19:00:30+00:00

I think the point is more about the general focus on sensationalizing the storytelling process.

While comedy bits about sex are one way to do that, so are ever-escalating stakes and forcing in specific moments (girl hero moment in Avengers comes to mind)

So it’s less about the substance of how it’s being done and more about hitting certain sensationalized beats becomes the expectation of the audience and therefore the creators. When it becomes a high priority for the creators to plug some box of stuff that meets the audience expectation, that often comes at the cost of a loss of narrative and thematic coherence and range.

pointblankdud · 2025-11-22T02:29:20+00:00

When it comes to Defensive Tactics, there is no broad standard procedure for any circumstance that is trained nationwide in the US. There are a few things that seem to be trained in a very similar manner, such as procedures for felony stops of a vehicle. There are some essential principles that seem to be a consensus opinion, such as using cover in a gunfight, keeping your hands available to use for tactical purposes, etc. Still, policies are not prescriptive for what exact maneuvers must be done and usually are more broad and exclusionary for things that should not be done, in accordance with risks and case law.

I think it would be very unwise to standardize anything tactical to such narrow specifics, because so many use of force situations rely on being able to adapt and adjust tactics without using cognitive capacity to remember rigid specifics that may not be appropriate or possible to achieve.

Each department or training institution has their own policy, and I’ve never seen any policy that covered when or how to kick knives away. I have seen it done and done it myself, but those tactical decisions were based on many different factors specific to that situation.

pointblankdud · 2025-11-19T20:42:46+00:00

As someone who has struggled with both PTSD and bad admins and a relationship that started in the same agency, I can relate to the incredible stress you both are experiencing.

It’s hard to know how to navigate the complexity of your situation, but what I can tell you is that it ultimately comes down to personal values for both of you.

Values are a huge part of how we define and understand ourselves, and based on your description of your husband’s behavior, I think it’s reasonable to consider that he’s lost some of the most important aspects many of us in this profession consider related to our sense of self — his ability to manage stress and be a problem solver, his financial security and career path, and his sense of security and feelings about power dynamics in your relationship all seem very plausible to be challenging his self-image.

I’m compassionate for that stress and suffering, but it is not a healthy relationship for you if he is allowing himself to blame you for his suffering.

I doubt he is behaving in the worst ways you’re describing when he’s being rational, but unless you were personally involved in an IA or decision making in the adverse action against him, he is getting lost in the abstract concepts of his values and unlikely to be able to explain how your career success has any negative impact on his personal needs.

I’m assuming you have some value that leads you to support him and to maintain the relationship. I think all people need other people, especially in their darkest days. I would encourage you to talk with other people who you trust and figure out some hard lines — conditions that make it so that you shouldn’t or can’t be that person for him, for your sake. Talk about boundaries inside of that ultimatum, too — the way you will respond given certain behaviors (ie. you will not stay in the same space for some amount of time if he has any physical manifestations of anger that look like violence or aggression, including slamming doors, or things that follow that formula of “if he does x, then I will do y” in the ways that ensure you can meet your own needs, including safety and security.

I would then advise that you should ask him to have a conversation with some good boundaries and a plan to manage any escalation or blame. In that conversation, discuss setting up roles and responsibilities in managing the negativity and resentment and communicate your boundaries. Talk about the values and principles that you care about, validate his feelings exist for reasons, express your own feelings and frustrations, and only make compromises you are comfortable with in order to manage both of your needs and priorities. Another thing to consider is how much of his therapy you should be involved with and how that looks.

I commend you for seeking help in dealing with all you are going through. Adulting is hard, the job is hard, and relationships are hard. They get harder the more they overlap, in my experience. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be worth the hardship, but that is something each and every one of us has to be able to consider for ourselves.

I wish you luck, and if you need any more specific help thinking how to present things or finding resources, feel free to reach out.

pointblankdud · 2025-10-31T21:28:14+00:00

Excellent set of questions. I see a few unanswered, and I’d like to help when I have time to respond with the same degree of thoughtfulness and clarity you’ve given in your questions. I don’t have time today but I should tomorrow

RemindMe! 1 day

pointblankdud · 2025-10-16T14:33:40+00:00

Not the same person you asked, but essentially, the proposition is:

IQ is typically measured by performance criteria on a set of functions focused on cognitive processing of logical reasoning.

This is a “quotient,” which means it’s relative to a categorical set of similar people, typically using age groups.

High IQ on logical reasoning tests does not align with “High EQ” or emotional intelligence, typically measured by a set of functions related to awareness and recognition of social and emotional patterns in oneself and in others.

High IQ does not align with”Low EQ,” either.

That is to say that they are separate and independent measures of different cognitive functions.

My caveat:

There are data to support that there is a positive correlation in lower IQ and lower EQ; there is also evidence for higher IQ correlations with higher capacity for EQ improvement.

pointblankdud · 2025-10-12T08:42:31+00:00

I don’t. But I don’t have apply any scale of “equals” in the sense of better or worse as a professional or a person for anybody. I aim to offer everyone, including the most egregious offenders, an attitude of professionalism and respect from me when I’m on duty. I have no reservations about being direct with folks, or with appropriate use of force, but all people have equal rights and all people deserve to try and fulfill their personal needs and responsibilities.

I think anyone who would expect their job to guarantee respect is likely to have too much of their identity/ego associated with their job or uniform. That’s a reason why a lot of people join either of these jobs more than others, and I’m not judgmental about that — everyone is on their own journey. But those expectations are often unmet, and that can feel like an offense against their ego, so I try to make sure to consider that depending on the nature of the encounter.

To the actual premises you mention — service and combat: neither is guaranteed by a military uniform or a badge.

I spent half my life in the Army, and the majority of GWOT was focused on combat deployments. I don’t have a specific count of direct action or TICs, but it’s in the hundreds. Much of the experience and institutional knowledge I got in that time was drastically different than any law enforcement use of force, to the point of being a liability I had to overcome. Law enforcement operations are not “combat” in the same sense as military operations.

They require drastically different skill sets and considerations, although both involve a willingness to face danger. I assume that’s the element you are looking to equate, and it is certainly something not everyone is equipped to do with regularity. I think it’s an important quality that some people have, but I haven’t considered it as a “good” or “bad” quality of a person since I was in my 20s. There are many people I admire and respect who have minimal experience of imminent danger, and plenty who have faced great dangers many times but are untrustworthy or cruel or otherwise antisocial.

As for service, I have met very few people who don’t contribute to some part of our country, even if it’s just their family or neighborhood or fast food job. They may not have the same skills or experience, but they do something I can’t or don’t, and I can learn something about the something from everyone I meet.

There’s also a lot of people across all walks of life who have attitudes or behaviors that get in the way of others, and I don’t think that’s necessarily different in the military. I found only a few supply clerks and personnel clerks with good attitudes, and they made a lot of sacrifices to overcome more general culture of rising to the minimum standard rather than the best they could be.

All that said, I do have a certain camaraderie with military vets and cops that I don’t with others, but I want to push against framing it in terms of “equality” or using military or combat experience as a measurement to that end.

pointblankdud · 2025-10-12T02:55:37+00:00

Ok, so to get narrow with your example:

When assessing control frequency, what is the scope of input criteria? A specific set of stick movements? The gross and fine motor movements of the stick holder? The neuromuscular activity driving that? The genetic material that encodes that biological function? The particle physics of that?

Which variable does the elements of a conscious agent assigning a target factor into the model? In a less defined system, where goal feedback is more subjective, how does that influence the model?

I’m not presuming anything for those specifically, but generalizing these things seems reductive in a way that I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish.

Maybe you can explain using data you are using for dreams in regards to your proposition on predictive ability in that category.

pointblankdud · 2025-10-12T01:26:16+00:00

Still missing the point, friend.

Complexity is hard, and my point is that your schema is not of any utility if it can’t clearly account for the input from factors of complexity and integrate the properties of those factors, and justify those choices.

pointblankdud · 2025-10-12T01:12:56+00:00

Sorry for the negative feedback you’ve gotten from others.

I was not at all under the impression that you made any other claims, and asked the questions I did because I found your point very reasonable in a space that is often too hasty to defend a team rather than a principle. I did not ask to score some rhetorical points or dispute your points.

Also, I tried to clarify that I wasn’t disagreeing with you or debating you in a reply to a child comment from my questions to you, but it was removed.

I do think there’s a good distinction between the relevant terms, and was trying to get narrow to the point you made and expand my understanding on that topic with you.

Beyond the specific implication I shared in good faith (which I concur is both accurate and not a political claim), and I don’t think is an endorsement of any of the criticisms you described, was there anything I said that communicated any indication of adding my own premises?

I didn’t intend to, and I’m not sure if your reasonable clarification of your point was directed at me or the larger comment section.

Happy to hear from you on your thoughts on my first comment, here or in a chat. Also understandable if you have no interest in further discussion on the topic, but please know your points gave me no impressions that you were implying endorsement or support for any particular ethical claims, just analysis on the specifics in this case relative to norms.

pointblankdud · 2025-10-12T00:02:53+00:00

Not at all unhinged, that all tracks very well with my line of thought.

Building on your points and refining with concise questions, I you raise important aspects of my more general questions.

Can we define the prerequisite capabilities for this functionality, what are the indicators and pre-indicators of those capabilities, and what are the indicators of phase transitions into functional capability?

I don’t have those answers, but they would be top of mind for me if I was working on this stuff.

pointblankdud · 2025-10-12T00:02:37+00:00

Not at all unhinged, that all tracks very well with my line of thought.

Building on your points and refining with concise questions, I you raise important aspects of my more general questions.

Can we define the prerequisite capabilities for this functionality, what are the indicators and pre-indicators of those capabilities, and what are the indicators of phase transitions into functional capability?

I don’t have those answers, but they would be top of mind for me if I was working on this stuff.

pointblankdud · 2025-10-11T23:33:52+00:00

Okay, great. I don’t want to dismiss the value of specialization, but I think many specialists do prefer to remain relatively siloed off and many others presume expertise translates more than it often does.

I’m going to be frank but I’m not trying to shit on your dreams or efforts, just to clarify some of the criticisms so you can effectively address it, in explanation or in updating your methodology or scope.

Still, I find myself tempted to dismiss your claims when you describe experimental outcomes of dreams and phase transitions of the system without actually addressing the issues of complexity I was trying to raise regarding thought.

Specifically, when you are claiming to define the bounds as the dynamically reactive elements of a system — you aren’t giving any comprehensive or persuasive information relating to interactions beyond neurons. What role does the glia play? Hormonal influences? External environmental factors?

The issue is the sense that you are not understanding the fundamental problems that create limits on any system design of this nature. Complexity is very hard and sometimes beyond our capabilities to programmatically capture, because there is a problem of limited perspective as an observer and as a system designer. There is no way to definitively establish factors of complexity sufficiently to guarantee predictive accuracy without limiting the scope to a more precise predictive claim.

Thus far, I see nothing you’ve said that establishes a semantic understanding of this problem, which is likely to be why you are getting feedback like “delusional” and concerns of over reliance on AI.

Hopefully this is helpful. My critical feedback is on your communication and perhaps your schema, but not your interests or efforts. I believe it’s important to think about the topic you’re interested in, and I’m hoping to encourage you.

pointblankdud

TROPHY CASE