In The Politics of Autism, I discuss various ideas about what causes the condition and how to treat it. I also write: "If the science were not confusing enough, its coverage in the mass media has added another layer of murk. News reports hype tentative findings and weak correlations as “breakthroughs” in the quest for autism answers. "
When I asked senior scientist Brigitta Gundersen, who manages Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) funding for autism studies involving rodents, for an example of a tangible quality of life improvement that this line of research has given us, she paused. “I struggle to think of examples across all of psychiatry, frankly.”
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Many symptoms, especially those related to social interactions and communication, are distinctly human — so much so that they’re nearly impossible to reproduce in mice. “You know,” Gundersen said, “no mice talk.”
Today, more scientists are rejecting the idea that mice can actually exhibit autistic-like behaviors. “Nobody thinks that mice are people,” Gundersen told me. “Nobody thinks that mice are modeling autism.”
But the number of publications featuring “mouse model(s) of autism” in the title has steadily increased since they were first introduced in the mid-2000s. A cynic might wonder why scientists are continuing to pursue this line of research, when both autistic self-advocates and a growing number of leaders in biomedicine are saying that it doesn’t make any sense.
Ne’eman said that some people in the autistic community jokingly refer to autism research as a “geneticist’s Full Employment Act” — a parallel to the proposed Autism Full Employment Act, which would create incentives for workplaces to hire autistic people.
The grant application system is really competitive. To boost their chances of getting research funding, applicants increasingly have to twist their research proposals to align with whoever will give them money. A lab interested in studying how gene expression guides brain cells to form connections with each other, for example, could pitch it as an autism study to open up additional funding opportunities.
