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Erin C. Sanders, MSN, WHNP-BC (She/Her) Profile picture
@ErinSandersNP
Apr 12 • 12 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
The biology of neurotypical (allistic) brains is towards maximal efficiency. Microglia literally prune redundant synapses to strengthen neural connections. This works differently in autistic folks who have many more dendritic spines & less pruning🧵
Paper: nature.com/articles/nn.27…

Screenshot of line graph showing synapse formation over time with “Dendritic spine number” on y-axis and age/life phase on x-axis. Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is in magenta. Normal is in black. Schizophrenia (SZ) is in green. And Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is in Navy. Birth is marked as a vertical dashed line. Childhood is shown in light pink. Adolescence is in light green. Adulthood is light blue. Across all disease states dendritic spine formation and synapse formation increase rapidly after birth. With ASD extending the highest. This is followed by a rapid decline during adolescence ...
2/ These brains function differently. Many folks have superior pattern recognition. It’s not fully understood why. Some areas of the brain have shown more connectivity, some less. Many variables at play and lack of diagnosis especially in underrepresented groups are significant.
3/ Some literature cites higher incidence of neurodegenerative diseases in Autistic people but with the known diagnostic and representation issues, as well as how much we don’t understand about the brain, I’m not sure how much of that can be extrapolated to an entire population.
4/ Got me thinking, as most things do…nature holds onto things that have an evolutionary advantage. Humans used to live to be only 30 or 40 years old. But now we have doubled that life span. In doing so, we face neurodegeneration and diseases that accelerate that neural pruning.
5/ Traits that have an evolutionary advantage or benefit are conserved.

For example, similar to our own circulatory system, leaf veins and capillaries have multiple connections and alternative pathways/loops in case part of the leaf gets damaged. Photograph of page 70 from book “Patterns in Nature” Multiple photographs in panel orientation showing vein patterns on different colored leaves. “SPREADING IT AROUND Fluids carrying nutrients are spread across the surfaces of leaves by branching vein networks with a hierarchy of different scales. Unlike the branches of trees and their roots, the tips of these branches can intersect and join up, forming loops that provide alternative pathways if parts of the leaf are damaged.”
6/ This is a different pattern than the branching of tree limbs or root systems.

What if the brain hyper connectivity or redundancy in neurodiverse individuals is actually protective against neurodegeneration and brain injury?

What if infectious disease can alter this biology? Photograph of page in book “Patterns in Nature” Panels of photographs showing trees, branches and roots. Caption reads: “ROOTS AND BRANCHES The fluid distribution networks of trees have the same form top and bottom, because both are particularly ellicient at transporting the vital fluids throughout the space the tree occupies.”
7/ Limiting sensory input: routines, foods, environments could allow for greater daily functioning in context of this baseline hyper-connectivity.

Hypersensitivity could be beneficial to survival and to protect human groups during less sensory/stimulating times like at night.
8/ Hyperfocused pattern seekers also notice when things are even slightly off and could function as an early alert system, which could again be protective.

Again, these traits have been evolutionarily conserved - so not accidental and likely beneficial somehow.
Screenshot of tweet ABrownHat @TheBrownestHat Follow “I would 100% notice a 500ms delay in SSH. I would not then painstakingly go through the code with enough thoroughness to detect an extremely well-hidden backdoor, because I'm not insane, but I sure am glad that people with that specific brand of insanity exist.” 9:06 PM • 3/30/24 From Earth • 1.6K Views
9/ Our modern world exposes us to constant overstimuli.

Humans weren’t designed to live this way, but we can compensate

To a point.

We can create an environment so that we can survive.

We can also create environments that nourish us and where neurodiverse people can thrive. Cartoon showing two daisies. One is growing in grass and says to the other “You’re so strong.” The other daisy who is growing out of a bunch of rocks says, “I'm not strong. I am surviving in a situation I have no choice about.” @ReveLaTei*
10/ Medicine and science like to approach health from a lens of deficiency.

But I think our bodies have a knowing.

I think some folks have an embodied wisdom we don’t currently appreciate.

Because we don’t want to listen.

Because we aren’t allowed to take the time to listen.
We have to stop abandoning each other. ♥️

#AutismAcceptanceMonth
#AutismAwarenessMonth
#NeurodiversityIsDiversity
More recent (2018) open access version of similar article by same authors:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

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More from @ErinSandersNP

Erin C. Sanders, MSN, WHNP-BC (She/Her) Profile picture
Mar 15
This is a really interesting thread on eugenics but has some glaring omissions like the connection with the current pandemic, ongoing US taxpayer funded genocide of Palestine, or that our country was founded on the genocide of Indigenous Americans and built by enslaved Africans🧵
2/ The glaring foundation of white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, ableism and capitalism should also be emphasized. Nazi propaganda of “useless eaters” is particularly relevant to our current moment in justifying the mass death of disabled people (as we disable more people)
3/ One could practically do a dissertation on the pandemic specifically explaining the harmful rhetoric and messaging from our administration, Walensky & Fauci regarding eugenics of “the vulnerable” when it’s *society* that MAKES people vulnerable

Here’s “falling wayside” Fauci:
Read 11 tweets
Erin C. Sanders, MSN, WHNP-BC (She/Her) Profile picture
Feb 14
Trump may have compromised the legitimacy of the CDC as a scientific institution but it was Biden and his appointees that gutted it.

So much needless suffering is about to happen.
It has *ALWAYS* been a workers rights issue. One could argue one of the largest in history.

If the people in power won’t protect themselves or their own families from infection, how little do you think they care about you and me? They prioritized “the economy” above all else.
Like let’s be crystal clear. This is WHY the disabled community was RIGHTFULLY FURIOUS at alleged pro-labor @SenSanders pushing the mild rhetoric.

Why saying Biden is “the most pro-labor president” DOESN’T MEAN HE CARES ABOUT YOU OR ME.
Read 7 tweets
Erin C. Sanders, MSN, WHNP-BC (She/Her) Profile picture
Jan 26
Cool. Cool. Now do reinfections…and multiple reinfections.

Then do a follow up test the next day because of cognitive PEM.

And maybe just listen to patients. Because they’ve been saying this since 2020.
cc: @sunsopeningband @tessfalor @WesElyMD

PAPER: thelancet.com/journals/eclin…




Screenshot text: “Pre-existing psychological or neurological conditions did not differentiate patients with PCC on objective performance neither (Fig. 6B). Given that depression was the most prevalent of the pre-existing conditions here (45%, see Supplementary Materials), this result is consistent with the absence of the aforementioned relationship between depression and cognitive slowing in PCC. Does the cognitive impairment get better with time? Patients with PCC showed the reverse trend: prolonged duration of PCC was linked with more severe cognitive slowing (r= 0.21, P= 0.003, Fig. 6C...
Figure 6 in paper How did the acute COVID-19 infection affect objective performance? (A) Although hospitalised individuals, regardless of PCC status, demonstrated no difference in RT in SRT (left) or NVT (middle), they were significantly less accurate (right). N (No PCC inpatients) = 7, N (No PCC outpatients) = 56, N (PCC
Fig. 1 Patients with PCC were slower than people without PCC, including those who had previously contracted COVID-19. (A) Simple Reaction Time (SRT)
Image
Computer based tests like this exist and patients can do them remotely at home. Because many patients with LC are severely disabled and just getting to a clinic is cognitively and physically exhausting.
Furthermore, in addition to the mountain of brain data we have on COVID and SARS2, there was this important finding from @PutrinoLab👇
Read 4 tweets
Erin C. Sanders, MSN, WHNP-BC (She/Her) Profile picture
Nov 28, 2023
“The @theNCI did not respond to multiple interview requests…” -@FortuneMagazine

It’s so dystopian that business magazines continue to have some of the best media coverage on COVID and longCOVID.

Oncogenic potential IS in the realm of possibility folks. And COVID is not over
The discovery of Hep B Virus was an EMBARASSMENT to @theNCI exactly because of the heavily funded and largely failed *Special Virus Cancer Program* from a scientist who LEFT the NCI in the 1960s exactly because of his interdisciplinary curiosity! Work that led to the HBV vaccine.
@theNCI The first virus discovered to cause cancer in humans was EBV (virus that causes mono) and Burkitt’s Lymphoma in 1958 by an Irish surgeon, Dennis Burkitt and two British virologists.

Caused a whole scurry of chaos with media printing “Cancer may be infectious!” in @LIFEmagazine.
Read 10 tweets
Erin C. Sanders, MSN, WHNP-BC (She/Her) Profile picture
Oct 16, 2023
Neurologic effects of SARS-CoV-2 transmitted among dogs. #NeuroCOVID

Kim D-H, Kim D-Y, Kim K-S, Han S-H, Go H-J, Kim J-H, et al.

@CDCgov Emerg Infect Dis. 2023 Nov. DOI: 10.3201/eid2911.230804
Original Publication Date: October 13, 2023

.

ABSTRACT 👇 wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/29…
Evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 can induce brain pathology in humans and other hosts. In this study, we used a canine transmission model to examine histopathologic changes in the brains of dogs infected with SARS-CoV-2. We observed substantial brain pathology in SARS-CoV-2-infected dogs, particularly involving blood-brain barrier damage resembling small vessel disease, including changes in tight junction proteins, reduced laminin levels, and decreased pericyte coverage. Furthermore, we detected phosphorylated tau, a marker of neurodegenerative disease, indicating a potential link between ...
“According to our results, the brains of dogs infected with SARS-CoV-2 demonstrate severe BBB disruptions and consequent SVD-like pathologic signs, including axonopathy, glial activation, and potential neurodegenerative changes even WITHOUT neurologic signs.” #Asymptommatic #MILD
Screenshot “Furthermore, activation of the astrocytes and microglial cells was maintained up to 40 dpi, even when the virus was cleared from the brain. That finding strongly suggests that the glial cells activated by SARS-CoV-2 potentially harm axons or other components of neuronal cells, even when virus is absent in the brain. That topic could be the focus of future research that requires further in vitro/in vivo studies to reveal the mechanistic link between glial activation and neuronal damage mediated by SARS-CoV-2 infection. Tau phosphorylation is the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. T...
Screenshot “our study has value as translational research to predict neuropathologic changes in the early phase of asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection in humans because we have observed the kinetic pathologic changes in the brains of dogs that did not show any neurologic signs. Compared with other animal models, dogs are genetically similar to humans and their brain structures are similar to those of humans making our extrapolation more reliable. According to our results, the brains of dogs infected with SARS-CoV-2 demonstrate severe BBB disruptions and consequent SVD-like pathologic signs, i...
It’s been over 3 years since my review of the initial SARSCOV2 neuro case studies came out.

But now we’ve got autopsy studies and non-human primate studies showing virus in the brain (h/t @DaniBeckman)

And a dog model showing asymptomatic infection resulting in brain damage.
Read 7 tweets
Erin C. Sanders, MSN, WHNP-BC (She/Her) Profile picture
Jun 13, 2023
1/ Fascinating new🧠#COVID study published in @ScienceAdvances

Haven't done a 🧵 like this in a while, but let’s break down what it does and doesn’t say

#SARSCoV2 infection & viral fusogens cause neuronal & glial fusion that compromises neuronal activity science.org/doi/10.1126/sc… Abstract Numerous viruses u...
2/ The authors pose the question regarding potential neuropathological mechanisms other than neuronal cell death that help viruses spread infection within the host that then leads to brain dysfunction

⚠️Brain damage can be caused without infecting neurons
doi.org/10.1002/jmv.26…
3/ What they found is VERY intriguing.

Instead of multiplying inside the cell and requiring the cell to burst & die in order to spread virions, the virus actually keeps the cell alive & uses it like a little trojan horse that docks on other similar neurons & fuses with them to
Read 42 tweets

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