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The Imprinted Brain: How Genes Set the Balance Between Autism and Psychosis
The Imprinted Brain sets out a radical new theory of the mind and mental illness based on the recent discovery of genomic imprinting. Imprinted genes are those from one parent that, in that parent's interest, are expressed in an offspring rather than the diametrically opposed genes from the other parent. For example, a higher birth weight may represent the dominance of the father's genes in leading to a healthy child, whereas a lower birth weight is beneficial to the mother's immediate wellbeing, and the imprint of the mother's genes will result in a smaller baby. According to this view, a win for the father's genes may result in autism, whereas one for the mother's may result in psychosis. A state of equilibrium - normality - is the most likely outcome, with a no-win situation of balanced expression. Imprinted genes typically produce symptoms that are opposites of each other, and the author uses psychiatric case material to show how many of the symptoms of psychosis can be shown to be the mental mirror-images of those of autism. Combining psychiatry with insights from modern genetics and cognitive science, Christopher Badcock explains the fascinating imprinted brain theory to the reader in a thorough but accessible way. This new theory casts some intriguing new light on other topics as diverse as the nature of genius, the appeal of detective fiction, and the successes - and failures - of psychoanalysis. This thought-provoking book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in autism, psychiatry, cognitive science or psychology in general.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
3 people are currently reading
139 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 31, 2022
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This is a late review, I remember the book being not that engaging and my interest was mainly drawn to a few tables. I've gathered a share of papers on schizotypy (sometimes schizophrenia) and autism. I followed Christopher Badcock's blog on the Imprinted Brain. I have wondered for some time if autism and schizophrenia have any political implications. Books such as Haidt's The Righteous Mind and Hibbing's et al. Predisposed talk about personality influencing political ideology, so why not abnormal psychology? And when I think of that, I'm not, necessarily, expecting liberal vs conservatism, which is however possible, but differences. In spirtuality differences between schizotypy and autism had been found, I expect the same in political ideology.
I was excited when Haidt discussed autism, but it had little to do with political ideology. Predisposed is the more biological book. Two other books, Hector Garcia's Sex, Power and Partisanship and Avi Tuschman's Our Political Nature, also come to mind. In his chapter “Is conservatism an extreme form of the male brain?” he mentions:
“Conservatism, I argue, is a male-centric strategy shaped significantly by the struggle for dominance in within-and-between group mate competitions, while liberalism is a female-centric strategy derived from the protracted demands of rearing human offspring, among other selective pressures.”
Hector Garcia borrows from Simon Baron-Cohen, but no mention of Bernard Crespi and Christopher Badcock. I'm hoping eventually that these ideas - by Crespi and Badcock - and those of politial psychology cross-fertilize. Add to the already mentioned books The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind and Del Giudic'Evolutionary Psychopathology.
I can recommend following Badcock at Psychology Today" the Imprinted Brain. For those interested, here is a talk about the Imprinted Brain by Bernard Crespi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hSrI...
This is a late review, I remember the book being not that engaging and my interest was mainly drawn to a few tables. I've gathered a share of papers on schizotypy (sometimes schizophrenia) and autism. I followed Christopher Badcock's blog on the Imprinted Brain. I have wondered for some time if autism and schizophrenia have any political implications. Books such as Haidt's The Righteous Mind and Hibbing's et al. Predisposed talk about personality influencing political ideology, so why not abnormal psychology? And when I think of that, I'm not, necessarily, expecting liberal vs conservatism, which is however possible, but differences. In spirtuality differences between schizotypy and autism had been found, I expect the same in political ideology.
I was excited when Haidt discussed autism, but it had little to do with political ideology. Predisposed is the more biological book. Two other books, Hector Garcia's Sex, Power and Partisanship and Avi Tuschman's Our Political Nature, also come to mind. In his chapter “Is conservatism an extreme form of the male brain?” he mentions:
“Conservatism, I argue, is a male-centric strategy shaped significantly by the struggle for dominance in within-and-between group mate competitions, while liberalism is a female-centric strategy derived from the protracted demands of rearing human offspring, among other selective pressures.”
Hector Garcia borrows from Simon Baron-Cohen, but no mention of Bernard Crespi and Christopher Badcock. I'm hoping eventually that these ideas - by Crespi and Badcock - and those of politial psychology cross-fertilize. Add to the already mentioned books The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind and Del Giudic'Evolutionary Psychopathology.
I can recommend following Badcock at Psychology Today" the Imprinted Brain. For those interested, here is a talk about the Imprinted Brain by Bernard Crespi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hSrI...
April 7, 2021
This is a hypothesis I dunno if it holds water. The argument is that Schizotypal and autism sit at opposite extremes of a spectrum with neurotypicals sitting in the happy middle between the two. It is linked to fetal development and epigenetics development. The schizoid is and underdeveloped fetally due to the mother's epigenetic interactions with the fetus depriving it of resources in the negotiation between the mother and child in utero. The autism case is where the father's genes in the fetus win out and the baby takes a lion's share of nourishment in the womb and overdevelops. Being on the schizoid side of things I don't particularly like his disdain of schizoids over autistics although the affront doesn't detract from the hypothesis which I find fascinating. Add to that some anecdotal evidence that a lot of M to F transgender women often have conditions of schizophrenia a brain feminization and overdeveloped theory of mind might actually be right. I dunno the work in this field is very much preliminary but an interesting idea to entertain especially for a schizoid trans woman like myself.
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December 30, 2023I will resist solely writing "isthisapigeon.png", but it is difficult to unironoically or sincerely engage with a book like this despite its provocative premise.
Falsificationism might be a metastasis (much as is dialectics). Pseudoscience is fine as long as one can escape the slippery slope into the 4chan race realist pipeline.
This was best put to me most recently by Lulie Tanett who explains what the father of falsification dubs irrationality, "readiness to accept criticism" or "readiness to learn from one's mistakes". Then we can say that reason is irrational if reason is used as atool for preventing change. Moving from Popper (the aforementioned father) to Deutsche, Tanett explains that the anti-rational is sabotaging the means of correcting errors, while the irrational means errors chronically aren’t being corrected.
But, one should not be always questioning beliefs as this opens up vulnerability to ever more obscure ideas. Rather, if an error makes itself evident, one might consider addressing it.
I just find it hard to engage with claims like: "When maternally derived genes for cognition are expressed, empathizing and mind-reading abilities flourish, often at the expense of mechanizing abilities. Conversely, paternally derived genes contribute to mechanistic cognition or even to autism spectrum disorders. The theory makes one key prediction that brain imaging and molecular genetics may someday ratify—that epoch-making minds, likely including Nash's and Newton's, exhibit both hypermechanistic and hypermentalizing extremes. These men were both autistic and schizophrenic—double outliers. 'True genius in any field of endeavor [may rely on] a mind that is not merely more or less balanced between autistic and psychotic but actually represents an overdevelopment of both'" from "The Mad Genius Mystery" in Psychology Today, where the inner quote comes from this book.
In online psychoanalysis circles, it is hard not to frame the horseshoe theory of politics, where radically progressive people use terms like psychosis and autism in a psychoanalytic sense while vaguely carrying the connotations of contemporary colloquial and clinical use.
Falsificationism might be a metastasis (much as is dialectics). Pseudoscience is fine as long as one can escape the slippery slope into the 4chan race realist pipeline.
This was best put to me most recently by Lulie Tanett who explains what the father of falsification dubs irrationality, "readiness to accept criticism" or "readiness to learn from one's mistakes". Then we can say that reason is irrational if reason is used as atool for preventing change. Moving from Popper (the aforementioned father) to Deutsche, Tanett explains that the anti-rational is sabotaging the means of correcting errors, while the irrational means errors chronically aren’t being corrected.
But, one should not be always questioning beliefs as this opens up vulnerability to ever more obscure ideas. Rather, if an error makes itself evident, one might consider addressing it.
I just find it hard to engage with claims like: "When maternally derived genes for cognition are expressed, empathizing and mind-reading abilities flourish, often at the expense of mechanizing abilities. Conversely, paternally derived genes contribute to mechanistic cognition or even to autism spectrum disorders. The theory makes one key prediction that brain imaging and molecular genetics may someday ratify—that epoch-making minds, likely including Nash's and Newton's, exhibit both hypermechanistic and hypermentalizing extremes. These men were both autistic and schizophrenic—double outliers. 'True genius in any field of endeavor [may rely on] a mind that is not merely more or less balanced between autistic and psychotic but actually represents an overdevelopment of both'" from "The Mad Genius Mystery" in Psychology Today, where the inner quote comes from this book.
In online psychoanalysis circles, it is hard not to frame the horseshoe theory of politics, where radically progressive people use terms like psychosis and autism in a psychoanalytic sense while vaguely carrying the connotations of contemporary colloquial and clinical use.
June 24, 2015
The premise behind this book is the new theory that autism and psychosis are opposite versions of abnormalities on the same gene. Numerous examples are given to support the theory that autism represents extreme thinking in "mechanistic" terms and that psychosis is an extremity of "mentalistic" thinking. Badcock also characterizes these as extreme male brain and female brain, respectively. But, apparently the *new* part of this is the contrast of the two as opposite yet related genetic manifestations. Temple Grandin (a livestock industry consultant in animal behavior) and Kim Peek (the inspiration for "Rain Man") are frequent examples and citations of autism, and Paul Schreber (a journal-keeping schizophrenic) is the most common example of psychosis.
I selected this book because it seemed interesting, even though I have no special or particular interest in the subject matter. Other than knowing a few people with varying degrees of autism (and suspecting a few others of being variously psychotic!) I didn't have a personal interest or reason for reading it except that I occasionally enjoy such reading. And I thoroughly enjoyed parts of the book and found them positively eye-opening, particularly the chapters that deal more specifically with autism. Other parts, like those dealing with psychosis were so dreadfully boring, however, that I couldn't help but wonder who the target audience for this book is supposed to be. I suppose some parents of autistic children may find parts interesting, but it's not really a manual on how to better understand a person with these conditions. I can more easily imagine this book being assigned reading in a college class of medical or psychology students, and a basic knowledge of psychology would certainly help to grasp it better. But for the general public I think most who have an occasional interest in scientific information will find it interesting only to varying degrees.
I selected this book because it seemed interesting, even though I have no special or particular interest in the subject matter. Other than knowing a few people with varying degrees of autism (and suspecting a few others of being variously psychotic!) I didn't have a personal interest or reason for reading it except that I occasionally enjoy such reading. And I thoroughly enjoyed parts of the book and found them positively eye-opening, particularly the chapters that deal more specifically with autism. Other parts, like those dealing with psychosis were so dreadfully boring, however, that I couldn't help but wonder who the target audience for this book is supposed to be. I suppose some parents of autistic children may find parts interesting, but it's not really a manual on how to better understand a person with these conditions. I can more easily imagine this book being assigned reading in a college class of medical or psychology students, and a basic knowledge of psychology would certainly help to grasp it better. But for the general public I think most who have an occasional interest in scientific information will find it interesting only to varying degrees.
September 10, 2009
The author is basically proposing an new theory of how the brain works, and how genetic and environmental factors may cause it to go wrong. It was a fascinating book, but his ideas seem to be still fairly theoretical; it will be interesting to see if they are proven.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews