FW TMS and reports from older Aspies it has helped.

February 21, 2010

I have received many emails saying the link did not work . The Author

of the Blog Post has given me permission to repost the blog in its

entirety .

< My son Cubby in the TMS lab, February 2010 with Ilaria Minio

Paluello, one of the scientist's at Harvard - Beth Israel Deaconess

Medical Center

I’ve been writing about TMS and its promise for the past two years on

my blogs. TMS – for those of you who are new to my stories – stands

for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. It’s a process by which

scientists focus powerful magnetic fields on specific area of the

brain to enhance or inhibit them. By doing so, our very cognitive

processes can be altered.

For the past two years, I have been working with Dr. Alvaro Pascual

Leone and a team of scientists at Harvard Medical School and Beth

Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Their website is

http://www.tmslab.org/ Alvaro asked me to join his team after reading

an early edition of Look Me in the Eye.

I'd like to share some of my experiences here . . .

In the beginning, I was reluctant to describe the full impact of TMS

for several reasons. First of all, I doubted myself. Some of the

changes were so powerful I wondered if they were real or if I imagined

them. I even doubted if anyone would believe me. And once I began to

see similar changes in other study participants, I became fearful of

coloring the results of ongoing experiments, or setting unrealistic

expectations in people. However, enough time has passed that it’s

time to share some of what I’ve experienced.

I can sum up what’s it’s done for me very succinctly. TMS has been

the lever that allowed me to roll the boulder of autistic social

disability out of my path. Today, thanks to Alvaro and his team, my

world is brighter, more colorful, and more alive than anything I knew

before. And best of all, I am fully engaged. I’m no longer an

outsider. I have gone from feeling like a social outcast to feeling

like I can talk to anyone, most any time. It’s a magical thing.

What happened?

The answer is simple.

TMS turned on the ability to look into another person’s eyes and read

their inner thoughts. But what does that mean? If you are not

autistic, you were born with more or less of that ability, and you

take it for granted. If you are autistic, you cannot know what having

this power means. I say that because that’s how I was for the first

50 years of my life. I too had no idea until TMS shined a light for

me.

Watch me talk about what happened here, in this four minute video

Now, for contrast, watch me in this video shot by my brother, shortly

before the life-changing TMS experiments. The difference is striking.

The range in my voice, the life in my face, my animation and

engagement . . . it's remarkable.

I’m not suggesting that TMS gave me ESP. After all, this is real

life, not science fiction. What TMS gave me is the same ability the

other 99% of humanity takes for granted – the ability to read ordinary

nonverbal cues from people. That’s the grease that makes social

interaction work. Now that I've experienced it, I can safely say that

knowing such abilities exist intellectually is totally different from

actually feeling and living with those same powers. One is imaginary;

the other is real.

What I learned from TMS is that you can’t have any idea how important

this nonverbal stuff is for social success unless you experience it

firsthand. Some people are like I was, social misfits and outcasts.

Others are the life of the party. I’m one of the few people who has

experienced both those states of being, thanks to the power of TMS.

TMS has had other effects on me too, but the " social functionality " is

by far the biggest.

Having said that, I should tell you about one more revelation TMS has

brought us. Oberman, one of the scientists who came here to

work with Alvaro, has developed a way to measure brain plasticity

using TMS pulses. Emerging studies are suggesting that excess

plasticity is a key factor in autism in general, and 's work

has delivered us a tool for measuring that plasticity in anyone. What

does that mean? It could lead to a lab test for autistic brain

traits. Can you imagine what a big deal that would be, to replace

" asking questions and rendering opinions " with a hard scientific test

for autism?

Here's a link to a story I wrote on brain plasticity

We have really just scratched the surface with the potential of TMS in

autism. And I have not even mentioned what the lab is doing in other

areas, like depression, epilepsy, stroke recovery, and other disorders

.. . .

I've written a number of stories about my experiences, and in fact the

whole thing will end up as a book in a few years. For now, here are

links to some of my TMS autism blogs:

My Feb 15, 2010 TMS story from Psychology Today

Brain Health, Body Wealth TMS

Look Me In The Eye: Brain Plasticity and TMS

Look Me In The Eye: A return to the TMS lab

Look Me In The Eye: Brain Plasticity and how it affects us

Look Me In The Eye: A summary of my TMS posts

Standing on the brink - thoughts on changing one's brain, from

Goodreads, spring 2008

Here's another perspective from my friend Wilcox:

My Experience with rTMS (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation)

| Forbes Wilcox

And this perspective is from a female Aspergian in our study

Seeing with a different eye

Some of you who have read my book will recall my statement that I do

not need a cure; just understanding. You may wonder how I might

reconcile that widely disseminated opinion with the way I've embraced

these TMS-driven changes in me. I'd like to address that, if I may .

.. .

When I talked of a " cure " in 2007, it was in the context of deep,

dark, and menacing " modifications " that had been touted elsewhere in

psychiatry. At that time, the only tools available to change someone

like me were sledgehammers - heavy medication and the like. There was

no such thing as a real cure, and I knew it. At the same time, once I

knew AS was not a disease, the " cure " idea became sort of offensive.

So the idea was more a vague threat than anything else.

What I have experienced today is not any kind of generalized " cure. "

In fact, many of the screening tools for autism - including 's

state-of-science plasticity test - show me to be just as Aspergian as

ever. What TMS has done is this: It has markedly reduced the

severity of a behavioral aberration that was holding me back from

realizing my full potential. I wanted to join the world of men more

fully, but my social disability was hampering that. Today, I still

have disability in that area, but it's markedly reduced.

I don't see anything wrong with improving myself in that way. You

might say I've made my mind stronger, just as I've worked out to make

my body fitter. I have not partaken of any " cure; " I've just worked

on minimizing my weaknesses; something I've done all my life and

allude to elsewhere in Look Me in the Eye. No one in the TMS lab

talks of " cures; " rather, we talk of helping reduce specific

components of disability - something that may or may not affect you.

That kind of thing may not be your cup of tea. If so, I understand.

I'm well aware that there is a tremendous range of opinion on this in

the autism community and I can accept anyone's point of view, for

themselves. We should all be free to choose.

You may now wonder . . . what's next?

At this moment (February 2010) we have ongoing studies measuring brain

plasticity in autistic, NT, and other people. We have cognitive

studies aimed at finding ways to improve " emotional intelligence. "

And we have more studies and tests in the works . . .

Alvaro and I have discussed experiments that may improve speech and

language in autistic people with severe language impairment. Alvaro's

team has already completed an initial study that suggests that TMS can

improve speech in people on the spectrum, and we are getting ready to

try to move from laboratory results to what I'd call " real world

observable " results. Can you imagine what it would mean if TMS could

remediate certain autistic language impairments?

We are also talking about a program that would combine TMS and

behavioral therapy to make real-world improvements in the lives of AS

people by increasing empathy and social insight, based on the

discoveries I've written about above.

So what's holding us back, you say! Let's go! There are three things

we need more of: Time. Money. Research participants.

There's not much we can do about time. But YOU can help with money,

and you may be able to volunteer for our studies or recommend them to

those close to you.

If you'd like to talk about helping fund Alvaro's work in the TMS lab,

I encourage you to write Kris Laping who heads up fund raising for

this part of Beth Israel Medical Center. Beth Israel is a teaching

hospital of Harvard Medical School, and there's no more worthy medical

organization in the world, in my opinion.

If you'd like to know more about joining our studies as a participant,

write Oberman is a brilliant postdoctoral fellow

who's taken on the job of talking to volunteers for the various TMS

lab studies.

Feel free to pass this along to anyone you think might benefit, and

feel free to write me if you'd like to know more

Elder Robison

February 21, 2010

" TMS turned on the ability to look into another person's eyes and read their

inner thoughts. "

Even Superman couldn't do that!

FW TMS and reports from older Aspies it has helped.

I have received many emails saying the link did not work . The Author

of the Blog Post has given me permission to repost the blog in its

entirety .

< My son Cubby in the TMS lab, February 2010 with Ilaria Minio

Paluello, one of the scientist's at Harvard - Beth Israel Deaconess

Medical Center

I've been writing about TMS and its promise for the past two years on

my blogs. TMS - for those of you who are new to my stories - stands

for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. It's a process by which

scientists focus powerful magnetic fields on specific area of the

brain to enhance or inhibit them. By doing so, our very cognitive

processes can be altered.

For the past two years, I have been working with Dr. Alvaro Pascual

Leone and a team of scientists at Harvard Medical School and Beth

Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Their website is

http://www.tmslab.org/ Alvaro asked me to join his team after reading

an early edition of Look Me in the Eye.

I'd like to share some of my experiences here . . .

In the beginning, I was reluctant to describe the full impact of TMS

for several reasons. First of all, I doubted myself. Some of the

changes were so powerful I wondered if they were real or if I imagined

them. I even doubted if anyone would believe me. And once I began to

see similar changes in other study participants, I became fearful of

coloring the results of ongoing experiments, or setting unrealistic

expectations in people. However, enough time has passed that it's

time to share some of what I've experienced.

I can sum up what's it's done for me very succinctly. TMS has been

the lever that allowed me to roll the boulder of autistic social

disability out of my path. Today, thanks to Alvaro and his team, my

world is brighter, more colorful, and more alive than anything I knew

before. And best of all, I am fully engaged. I'm no longer an

outsider. I have gone from feeling like a social outcast to feeling

like I can talk to anyone, most any time. It's a magical thing.

What happened?

The answer is simple.

TMS turned on the ability to look into another person's eyes and read

their inner thoughts. But what does that mean? If you are not

autistic, you were born with more or less of that ability, and you

take it for granted. If you are autistic, you cannot know what having

this power means. I say that because that's how I was for the first

50 years of my life. I too had no idea until TMS shined a light for

me.

Watch me talk about what happened here, in this four minute video

Now, for contrast, watch me in this video shot by my brother, shortly

before the life-changing TMS experiments. The difference is striking.

The range in my voice, the life in my face, my animation and

engagement . . . it's remarkable.

I'm not suggesting that TMS gave me ESP. After all, this is real

life, not science fiction. What TMS gave me is the same ability the

other 99% of humanity takes for granted - the ability to read ordinary

nonverbal cues from people. That's the grease that makes social

interaction work. Now that I've experienced it, I can safely say that

knowing such abilities exist intellectually is totally different from

actually feeling and living with those same powers. One is imaginary;

the other is real.

What I learned from TMS is that you can't have any idea how important

this nonverbal stuff is for social success unless you experience it

firsthand. Some people are like I was, social misfits and outcasts.

Others are the life of the party. I'm one of the few people who has