1. This paper examines the question of whether the dramatic drop in infant and fetal mortality rates that occurred in the United States during the twentieth century could be a cause for some true increase in the prevalence of autism.  Autism is associated with difficult births, as well as other factors, that could mean that people with autism disproportionately benefited from changes that greatly lowered the infant and fetal mortality rates.  (Posted July 24, 2007)

1. Describing human personalities as a mixture of four ingredients is a centuries old concept.  In Ned Herrmann’s work on personalities, he uses a model of quadrants of the brain, derived from the idea that the brain has a left and right neocortex and limbic system. Taking this to its logical conclusion, larger imbalances in usage could theoretically cause larger differences in behavior.  This document discusses evidence that this type of imbalanced use of four parts of the brain could be the source of the kind of focused intelligence that creates plays, monuments and scientific theories, and that it could also create a vulnerability to learning and mental disorders, with autism at the more unbalanced end of that spectrum.  (Posted Feb. 21, 2007)