Empathy, hypersensitivity, anxiety, difficulty understanding social nuance, nonstandard eye contact - it actually sounds quite similar to autism, rather than the opposite. (Not the stereotypical autistic traits that most people misunderstand but the actual traits.) The overlap is interesting. I wonder if in the future some related mechanisms/explanations will be discovered.
The specific "opposite" they talk about is clarified further in the article and is interesting:
> Lizzie Hurst, chief executive at the Williams Syndrome Foundation, says: "People [with the disorder] conduct themselves in a way that makes them extremely vulnerable.
> "They don't have the cognitive ability to match their linguistic age.
> "There is a classic autistic profile to which Williams Syndrome is the polar opposite. People can gauge the mood of a crowd and adopt without understanding the nuances of the situation."
The last bit of that is the difference, right? You wouldn't say an autistic person could easily gauge the mood of a crowd and adopt. These are people who are -- compared to neurotypical people! -- social butterflies, linguistically talented, friendly, open, happy-go-lucky, but gullible. This is not the picture of classic autism for sure. It does feel somewhat opposite.
But then I guess one of the interesting things about opposites is that they are within the same plane or category, right? The opposite of a knife is another item of cutlery, not a haddock.
It seems like this syndrome is a genetic deletion, which is not my understanding of autism, but it presumably could have some similar neurological impacts.
In regards to the genetic deletion, yeah that doesn't seem to be the cause of autism, but cells are so complex that their could be related mechanisms downstream from that. E.g. it's not like there's a single "socialising gene" which is either on or off and explains the entire phenotype. I thought of it because we know there's a lot of overlap between other neurodivergent conditions like autism and ADHD. Maybe one day we'll discover a model which explains all these conditions.
> e.g. it's not like there's a single "socialising gene" which is either on or off and explains the entire phenotype.
Indeed, naïvely it almost seems to me like in Williams Syndrome what is missing is something that causes the brain to keep the mirror neurons in perspective. People with the syndrome rapidly experience a sense of closeness with people they don't actually understand and whose motivations may be harmful.
Hmmm.... But many pieces of cutlery can still be used to cut... Haddock would be exceedingly hard to cut anything with. IPSO FACTO! HADDOCK IS THE OPPOSITE OF A KNIFE!
The deletion of ~25 genes on chromosome 7 in Williams Syndrome affects oxytocin regulation and amygdala function differently than the neurobiological patterns in autism, creating distinct social-cognitive profiles despite the superficial similarities you've noted.
Oxytocin plays such a small role in Autism and it is not consistent across the disorder. I have Aspergers but I react much like someone with Williams Syndrome. For example, I usually end up crying when I see live music, even more so when I experience live tribal music, for instance, at a Powwow.
