Musicophilia Introduces Bully Basal Ganglia' Contribution To Self In Autism

In Musicophilia Dr. Oliver Sacks talks about the work of Llina's, a neuroscientist at New York University. With the reference comes the thought that the basal ganglia are crucial to the production of "action patterns" for "...walking, shaving, playing the violin, and so on". The neural embodiments of these action patterns are referred to as "motor tapes" - mental activities like perceiving, remembering, and imagining are all considered motor.

"...if we look at how the brain generates creativity, we will see that it is not a rational process at all, creativity is not born of reasoning." (Dr. Sacks)

For my, at first autistic but then something else, daughter it seems like her life long memories or action patterns have formed motor tapes that are a hodgepodge without clear distinction between that which is rational and that which is creative. For those more typical, how is the hodgepodge provided with defined distinction? It is clear that my daughter has quite the motor tape library; one that becomes entirely creative (lacking reason) due to the way the tapes are utilized by her.

During my daughter's most profound psychotic states the motor tapes from her basal ganglia lacked any defined brain etiquette. The motor tapes hardly waited to be called up by her thalamocortical system (aka the self) and they seemed more like they were always on -- in a fast forward fashion.

Dr. Sacks points out that "...the activity in the basal ganglia is running all the time, playing motor patterns and snippets of motor patterns amongst and between these nuclei (aka motor tapes), they seem to act as a continuous, random, motor pattern noise generator. Here and there, a pattern or portion of a pattern escapes, without its apparent emotional counterpart, into the content of the thalamocortical system (aka self)."

During her worsening my daughter's life long memories took her over and manifested as schizophrenic tendencies. While the typical person's response to an occasional memory being called to the thalamocortical system would be to many times fleetingly consider the memory and then release it - without a lot of emotion or response being involved - my daughter lacked resilience against an overly abundant and frequent supply of her memories' intrusions. Such happened for unrelenting and prolonged periods.

I became aware of the fact that my daughter turned out of the ordinary experiences into ritualistic events. That is to say, she re-enacted them to perfection thinking that she must do so as part of an ongoing repertoire.

I kept track of school reports of her more explosive experiences (behavioral outbursts) and identified that if she had a highly charged behavioral experience during Art on Thursday for whatever reason - she would repeat with a pretty exact reenactment the outburst on the very next Thursday; during Art again. Such would happen even with the initial reason (trigger) for the very first event absent. She engaged with similar behavior in her earliest years and I just dealt with it by coaching her.

The first time that I recall being witness to her penchant for doing so, we had been rollerblading. She was perhaps six years old. She had a gnarly wreck at a certain spot on the park path. She cried for a while, but then we continued to skate. The next day when we went rollerblading I watched as she deliberately made herself have the same wreck in the same spot. It was a re-enactment done to absolute perfection. I looked at her and was so surprised. I said something like, "Oh! Sarah, you do not have to do that. You don't have to wreck every time we take this turn."

The next time that we went rollerblading I made sure to be right beside her when we got to that spot, so that I might coach her with continuing to skate. She never wrecked there again. The fact that she utilized her memories in this fashion was, and continues to be, fascinating to me.

During her worse times, she had a tremendous amount of episodic experiences of repetitive body movements with chanting, followed by laughter, or more predominantly anger and violent outburst. She also had a lot of the internal conflict related to auditory hallucination. Certain words, when spoken by us, triggered episodes. One day while we were riding a tandem bike together by the school a PE teacher said "hurry" to some of the kids who were running. My daughter heard him say "hurry" and she engaged in an episodic experience while on the bike; hard but doable for her. The phrase "there you are" also triggered the episodes.

Considerations about my daughter's memory function are difficult to express, except to say that for portions of her life the basal ganglia have been the bullies, and this is because her thalamocortical system (self) was hard pressed to know how to categorize all of the motor tapes that were sent along.

About our journey with autism... At the very beginning I figured, no big deal, we'll get our daughter normalized in no time and pretty soon she would be asking for the car keys. It didn't quite work out that way and as my entire family and I continued to work through the ebb and flow of her unique walk, we fell madly in love with her in all her glory. For a real life look at one case of severe autism, just Google "Hello, Dr. Wells". It is a sixteen year account of autism that turned to schizophrenic like psychosis.

Original article

Musicophilia Meets: Hyperacusis-Savant Syndrome-Catatonia In Autism

Musicophilia (Oliver Sacks) considers those whose neural underpinnings, with regard to processing musical perception, are disordered. It also brings light those who are prone to have a non typical neural processing response to everyday sounds. The book also mentions that sensory limbic hyper connection might be the basis for the emergence of the unexpected artistic, sexual, mystical, or religious feelings that sometimes occur in people with temporal lobe epilepsy.

As far as sound perception and non typical response to it, this is something that is displayed in the autism spectrum. Additionally, autism affected individuals display unexpected talents that are described as savant skills -- these are akin to unexpected ability in those with profound developmental challenges. Lastly, many in the autism spectrum have seizure disorders.

Sound Perception: Where sound is concerned, my own autistic daughter displayed off the charts negative response to public address systems at about 21/2 years old. Yeah, the blue light special just was not so good for our Sarah. Going to see fighter jets at a local base found my daughter covering her ears for a significant duration, even before the rest of us heard the jets and then saw them. She perceived that her dad's cell phone was going to ring, before it did. She actually covered her ears in preparation for the first ring, and the phone was not set to vibrate. We were in disbelief, that she might hear the ring before it happened.

As Sarah became a little older the public address system and other sounds at school or at stores continued to adversely affect her; because of this she began to use ear protectors. While in kindergarten she self-regulated the use of her ear protectors. These protectors did not inhibit her ability to hear classroom goings on. She had a better than expected kindergarten year as all considered her moderate to severe autism label and what was usually expected of children with that label. In spite of the pretty successful kindergarten year, the school's experts began to prohibited use of her ear protectors once my daughter started the first grade.

The school experts' idea was that my daughter would learn not to be discomforted from -- or have non typical neural response to -- the differing sounds. Theirs was a mindset that insisted that Sarah might be behaviorally modified from the sounds that had a physically assaultive affect upon her. The school's team decided that they were going to teach Sarah that the sounds were not bad, but good. Maybe they thought that constant exposure to the sounds that negatively affected her would desensitize her extreme response to them.

It was obvious to me that Sarah was physically affected by the sounds. In that, there was something very adverse going on in her head. Her body would also heat up when she was exposed to environments where prolonged or continued use of public address occurred -- even as I allowed her to wear the ear protectors in these environments.

A little later in her life I was able to discern that sound quality had a lot to do with it. If there was something loud on high quality speakers it did not bother her. However, anything at any volume on low quality speakers was just terrifying to her -- like she was being tortured in some way. I even figured out that the treble quality to sound was a big culprit.

I experimented with how FM radio versus AM radio affected her. No AM radio, since there is usually a dissonance to the sound that is not usually present in FM. After that I was able to figure out that she could not listen to music with that treble, scratchy or dissonant quality. She became able to communicate her dislike with regard to sound quality and sometimes for instance -- she stated that "Jeremy Camp is too scratchy" and then turned off the radio when he was on. Sorry Jeremy.

It might be important for those who are school experts to consider that sound sensitivities are not always a concern of volition or behavioral psychology and are many times a hardwired condition of non typical neurological functioning.

Savant Syndrome: With regard to sensory limbic hyper connection: Sarah had -- what I consider -- a savant type ability for artistic expression that was compulsive but agreeable. She so enjoyed engaging in hours upon hours of art. She acted upon her artistic impulse as most artists would. Her enjoyment and compulsive engagement in art ceased upon her worsening from autism to profound schizophrenic like psychosis.

Once psychosis entered in, she tried to do her art but it took her over in a negative way instead of being a pleasing adventure. Therefore, the art ceased because she needed the blank slate...so to speak. I guess since the art usually had subjects that had associations that lead her toward psychotic thought -- she needed to stay away from it in order to get better.

Seizure, Catatonia: Dr. Sacks' Musicophilia describes seizures that manifested as musical hallucination (aural music). One subject felt that he must not pay too close attention to the aural music, as he might not be able to escape the song -- like quicksand or hypnosis. It seemed to exert a frightening and almost dangerous spell on him, so that he was deeper and deeper into it. Further describing: A strange alteration of time and consciousness -- compared to dreams from which one would awaken. While in such a state the subjects could perceive what was going on around them but could not respond; described as a doubling of consciousness. (Dr. Sacks)

While trying to work through remedies for psychosis, doctors have felt Sarah to have a sleep state dissociation -- and have also proposed her to have a rare variant of catatonia in context of her autism. They have seen her absence spells and automatism. I would compare both of these to being taken over as described by the persons considered in the above. Like quicksand or hypnosis.

As my daughter was being treated for her psychosis over several years there came a point that she was able to ask me for help. She started asking for a "tug", so that my encouragement and our combined wills could stave off the episodes. I figured out that Sarah felt we were winning if she could be distracted from the episodes. One time, I softly tackled her upon a couch that she stood by as she engaged in an episode. Immediately after I did that, she looked at me with amazement and said "Good job Mom. We did it!" (It was a playful tackle.)

Another time, while she was an inpatient I distracted her with a stuffed frog from the gift shop that made the "ribbit" noise. She had been engaged in an episode for quite some time when the frog successfully distracted her. She looked over at me and said "Yes" her eyes lighting up from a previously vacant stare and her face breaking into a smile. Those at the hospital who had been alongside her and quite worried became pleased at the successful distraction. At that time I think they feared malignant catatonia.

Musicophilia also makes mention of Musicogenic Epilepsy; epileptic seizures induced by music. The type of music that can provoke the seizures varies. Some patients are said to react to only particular instruments or noises. Atypical response to certain noises is certainly evident in autism and as I wrote previously, not a concern of volition -- but neurology.

About our journey with autism... At the very beginning I figured, no big deal, we'll get our daughter normalized in no time and pretty soon she would be asking for the car keys. It didn't quite work out that way and as my entire family and I continued to work through the ebb and flow of her unique walk, we fell madly in love with her in all her glory. This articles are just an outreach in case the information is helpful to anyone. For a real life look at one case of severe autism, just Google "Hello, Dr. Wells". It is a sixteen year account of autism that turned to schizophrenic like psychosis.

Original article

Musicophilia Meets: Media Bombardment's Contribution To Autism

Musical imagery just happens...

Musical imagery is the brain hearing music when there is no music actually playing.

In Musicophilia Dr. Sacks shows that "Musical imagery is not voluntarily commanded or summoned but comes to us apparently spontaneously." Could the spontaneous nature of this imagery - at times be sparked by associative thought? I am not sure. But Dr. Sacks pays attention to the associative thought process - as he points out how one of his correspondents says that "Every memory of my childhood has a soundtrack to it."

Musical imagery comes from repeated exposure to a particular piece or type of music. Dr. Sacks points out how a type of musical imagery that entered his own mind, while lacking an associative emotional attachment (like from childhood memory), was pleasurable enough for him to attend to. He relates his musical imagery to the fact that..."I have bombarded my ears and brain with them, and the musical "circuits" or networks in my brain have been supersaturated, overcharged with them. In such a supersaturated state, the brain seems ready to replay the music with no apparent external stimulus." (Dr. Sacks)

The type of musical imagery that Dr. Sacks deals with is described as rarely intrusive or uncontrollable. However, the doctor has treated those who have more voracious experiences within the realm of musical imagery - or that which is just flat out auditory hallucination.

When considering Dr. Sacks described bombardment and resulting musical imagery I am given cause to pause with regard to all the auditory input that children are bombarded with in our current society.

For my own autistic daughter who experienced a worsening into schizophrenic like psychosis at about ten years of age, it became imperative to stop her constant engagement in viewing familiar animated movies, games and TV programs. For the most part they all have similar music - but with the added dash of intrigue that ended up being very bad for her.

Right before her worsening she needed the volume turned up on anything that she listened to. It was as if she was trying to drown out other things in the environment. Soon it was apparent that she was having internal conflict and I realized she was trying to drown out what was going on in her head. She progressed to the point of having inexplicable screaming episodes as she tried to occupy herself with watching her movies or engaging in a video game.

She really got to the point where no known external stimulus need be present in order that she go berserk. As the outburst expanded in duration, intensity and number - the internal conflict was coupled with catatonia like presentation. By this particular point I and my family had identified auditory and visual hallucinations were a part of the overall process for her.

Perhaps the succession that led to horrific hallucinatory process started with that of voracious musical imagery that was intertwined with visual media imagery. As far as the motor movements that also took her over, what can one expect when so much is going so wrong neurologically.

Her worsening did not relent for several years. However, my daughter was eventually able to discern that she needed to be void of too much stimulus, and while a hospital inpatient she would many times voluntarily take herself to the seclusion room that was void of stimulation during her rougher times.

Her determination to shine in spite of the tremendous neurological challenges only emboldened the determination to hang on with her. Most doctors felt we should give up. I and my family did not know how to give up because as unbearable as life was with her - it would be worse without her. We were witness to a cherished one who was suffering in a neurological hell, all the while trying to make her own way out.

Throughout those years there were tries at helping her that were inconsequential. These were the kinds of help that might more aptly apply for those who were not so obviously suffering from a severe neurological - and not strictly volitional - condition.

During an occupational therapy evaluation: My daughter hated classical music playing in the background. She hates sound with too much treble quality. The OT felt it important to find music that she could enjoy, however all that she experienced turned into conflict so that not even music soothed her. The OT noted that we already utilized strategies at home such as swimming and swinging, exclusively doing so because my daughter usually responded to favorably to them. The report gave a very long and excellent list of ideas for settling at night, but the active hallucinations and manias cared little for such a list.

I previously had exposure to, and understood the OT's suggestions since my daughter lived her entire life in the world of autism. Everyone tried so hard to help but the fact for the current time was that we were not dealing with anything near normal, and my daughter was not responding to most of these types of interventions normally. Her world represented an upside down one. Things considered soothing by many became intolerable.

During a relaxation session: An attempt was made to have my daughter utilize certain relaxation techniques. Mostly breathing exercises and music. The deliberate breathing required repetition, or ritual. How could I explain to the therapist that this meditative breathing might be bad? Ritual proved harmful to my daughter and seemed to through her into absence spells. The repetitive relaxation breathing might contribute to troubling absence spells. Past absence spells disturbed my daughter enough to result in violence and screaming.

My daughter tried relaxation with the therapist, but as she engaged in the deliberate breathing she looked disturbed - the way she usually looked when dealing with internal conflict. Her thought processes were fried and repetition of any sort was an enemy. Meditation upon meaningless music, breathing, or idle thinking was in vain. It really pointed to her susceptibility toward spells, as compared to some individual's susceptibility to hypnotizing. Perhaps my daughter's involvement in any sort of repetition put her in a trance state, without benefit of suggestion from the hypnotist. All she had was her inner conflict from which to draw.

Indeed, for my daughter types of music represent an evolving trigger process for imagery, hallucination and ultimately conflict.

As I read Dr. Sacks' work and consider my daughter's presentation over her entire life I can easily conclude that caution is advised for our current culture. The bombardment of media - the constant viewing of cartoons, animated movies and other media, most of which have a lot of music intertwined is something better avoided in large dose; especially by those identified as being part of the spectrum of autism. These media, in too large a dose, may represent for the autistic child the same scenario as the bombardment that Dr. Sacks talked about with regard to his own musical imagery.

While Dr. Sacks is better able to make sense of his own imagery's intrusion. An autistic child will have a harder fought life long journey of discernment with regard to what they take in, and how their psyche responds to it all.

*****

About our journey with autism... At the very beginning I figured we would get our daughter normalized in no time and pretty soon she would be asking for the car keys. It didn't quite work out that way and as my entire family and I continued to work through the ebb and flow of her unique walk, we fell madly in love with her in all her glory. This articles are just an outreach. For a real life look at one case of severe autism, just Google "Hello, Dr. Wells". It is a sixteen year account of autism that turned to schizophrenic like psychosis.

Original article

Musicophilia Meets: Early Hyperacusis' Contribution To Autism

In Musicophilia Dr. Sacks offers the concept that removal of normal auditory input might result in a hypersensitivity of the auditory cortex causing heightened powers of musical imagery -- and sometimes auditory hallucinatory process.

Dr. Sacks' focus is with music and how it is utilized and occupied in the brain of neurotypical persons, many of whom developed their non typical and more fascinating response to music later in life.

What is not lost where autism is concerned is the fact that many times sight perception, auditory perception, and other sense perception translates to unique and non typical understanding of life experience for many within the spectrum.

My autistic daughter's auditory sense is profoundly unique in how it is processed, and certain sounds affect her physical well being. This means that she most probably has not learned in the usual manner even from her earliest years.

If one is dealing with a confused non typical auditory process, a process that might even have ramifications with regard to feeling physically well or not, their complete focus would not be upon a normal assimilation of all that is going on around them. Learning about life in typical context -- the abstract, the concrete, emotions and so on -- would hardly be doable.

Perhaps because of the above my own daughter's ability to discern life in context -- to understand the abstract, the vague, pretend, real, rote meaning, and meaning in context -- has either been delayed or lost in varying degrees. Indeed, she has more easily understood things that are rote in nature, or mathematical; and these have been a strength for her. Perhaps the abstract, vague, pretend, real, concrete, rote meaning, meaning in context, have equal relevancy in her mind and are not neurologically tucked away where each type of memory belongs.

Her understanding of all thought and life experience might very well be that concrete is abstract and abstract is concrete -- there is no difference. There seems an absence of pecking order with regard to types of thought, and thought's assimilation in her brain. Thus her intellectual complexity creates a repertoire process that is similar in concept to musical imaging that Dr. Sacks describes -- but hers is a process that is intensified and includes more than processing of music.

The autistics' neural underpinnings might not always possess development of separate identity types for different types of thought (Short-Term, Long-Term, Explicit, Episodic, Semantic, Implicit, Priming, Procedural); those underpinnings might be hard pressed to develop typically since, for those with hyperacustic hearing, ability to focus typically to the stimuli is absent.

Not just my own daughter, but all within the autism spectrum, most likely possess an unique intellectual complexity that is amazing, hardly understandable to the masses. Understood only by those who have in some significant way witnessed an autism affected person's life experiences.

I suppose that due to the offensive way my daughter has heard all along, her neural connections might have never developed the proper pathways with regard to directing typical comprehensions during differing types of thought scenarios. Her neural connections have taken unique non typical paths, therefore her thought is utilized and occupied in a vastly different way than normal.

The autistic mind, every one, has potential for extreme brilliance that is housed in such a way that we might only be lucky to be able to test it or tap into it. The methods by which IQ is tested, cannot identify the kind of smarts that many in the autism spectrum have.

My daughter's worsening autism -- psychosis nos -- seems to represent the "filling in" that Dr. Sacks describes with regard to musical imagery. His book describes how some persons' brains actually function as if they are hearing music, when they are not exposed to the auditory input of music playing. The way such was determined was to play familiar songs quietly as subjects listened, but have gaps where the music wasn't playing (while performing the brain imaging).

In truth, my daughter's "filling in" is not about music, it is about her whole life experience. She seems to lack the thought filters that are standard in most human models. Her neural stimulation seems a hodgepodge that is simply invoked by even the most novel of thought associations. It has made life for the rest of us most interesting and many times for my daughter, most exhausting.

*****

About our journey with autism... At the very beginning I figured we would get our daughter normalized in no time and pretty soon she would be asking for the car keys. It didn't quite work out that way and as my entire family and I continued to work through the ebb and flow of her unique walk, we fell madly in love with her in all her glory. This articles are just an outreach.

For a real life look at one case of severe autism, just Google "Hello, Dr. Wells". It is a sixteen year account of autism that turned to schizophrenic like psychosis.

Original article

Autism Hallucinations Meets Musicophilia

Oliver Sacks' Musicophilia is an eye opener even if you do not have a daughter who has been troubled with schizophrenic like psychosis, a worsening of initial autism.

It is not too far of a reach that I considered autism while reading about some of the presentations brought to light by the good doctor.

One of Dr. Sacks' examples highlights the experience of an eight year old boy named Michael. This boy had music playing in his head pretty constantly, and could not find peace from it. He would ask that someone turn the music off.

Reading about Dr. Sacks' Michael took me back to an instance when my own autistic daughter articulated that I needed to turn it off while motioning toward our truck radio -- even as it the truck radio was not playing. She was dealing with internal noise. She was eleven and had been experiencing a presentation that was schizophrenic like for about a year.

During that particular 2004 winter truck ride, my daughter had started having conflict within herself. She became more and more worked up and when her internal conflict became too much she began to scream incessantly. She then kicked with her feet and slammed with her hands, the dashboard of the truck. She started hitting and throwing items. I gave her time to come down from her episode by parking in a secluded spot nearby the high school from which I was picking up my son.

Hiding for a while was a good bet because the uninformed judging that people engage upon when this sort of thing happens is like a nail in the coffin for parents like me. Ones who are trying to see things through in very difficult situations.

Eventually my daughter came down enough to remorsefully cry and tell me she was sorry and to hold her arms out for a hug. She again made a request that I turn it off. If I only could turn off her auditory hallucinations...

As it was -- for survival sake -- I and the rest of my family had learned to at first accommodate ourselves with learning the content of her hallucinations. After the initial process of learning her hallucinations, in order to suppose what part of her real world paradigms they came from, we could talk through them with her. Eventually she understood in her own terms that she was dreaming. At least, that is what the hallucinatory process began to represent for her -- even as she was awake while they transpired.

As for the why of my daughter's hallucinations, I and my family were able to eventually identify the many associative triggers which fueled and caused the flow of many of them.

Overall, Dr. Sacks' book really supports the idea that there can be incidental and odd triggers from thought associations that in turn cause internal noise or hallucinatory events. Since this is found in typically functioning individuals -- it is logical to realize that it is happening for some within the autism spectrum.

*****

Valerie chronicled events with regard to her family's experiences surrounding autism that turned to schizophrenic like psychosis, over a sixteen year period. In Hello, Dr. Wells she offers a diverse sample of information via the inclusion of surveys, assessment reports, journal entries, medication evaluations, educational reports and medical reports. These are woven throughout a poignant and sometimes heart wrenching account. Hello, Dr. Wells is available on the web at no cost. Just Google it.

Original article