Indeed. Thanks for the great explanation. Honestly, the complexity would be very annoying if it wasn’t also invigorating and fascinating.

The interconnections between genes has led to proposals of “omnigenic” models, the idea that all genes expressed in a cell affect every given trait of the cell, to some extent.

When it comes to something like autism, it’s a word covering a vast number of traits and behaviors of many different cells that gives rise to that set of effects as seen from outside.

And the issue with genetic testing is, we often only look at specific regions of the genome. Even when we do whole genome tests, and compare whole genomes of autistic folks, what we find is no single origin but many overlapping patterns. No definitive set is found because we are looking at complex processes that have many nodes where mutations can mildly tweak the function. Many such functionally relevant mutations can chain together to give you the signatures of autism, and no two are the same.

All these reasons also point to why we are increasingly realizing autism isn’t a “disease” with a “cure”. It’s a way in which people can be people. It’s time society accepted that and expands itself to accommodate.