Energy Issues vs. intelligence or reasonableness issues

Val's Take/Conjecture

• Reframing Neuro-Developmental and Psychiatric Disorders as Brain Energy issues is a major paradigm shift and it brings with it waves and waves of new insight.
• This new insight is for the society and clinicians, and most importantly for individuals themselves.
• If you're getting pushed to do things you don't have the energy to do, and at some point you push back, this typically does not end well for the neuro-diverse person.
• Further, the good news and the bad news is that many neuro-diverse people have average to above average intelligence.
• Additionally, many neuro-diverse people have Hyper-Plastic Brains.  This turns out to be a mixed blessing.
• Further, many neuro-diverse people have a Hyper-Connected Brain and this turns out to be  a mixed blessing.
  

As conjecture, I would submit that Hyper-Plastic, Hyper-Connected Brains require more energy, and Neuro-Typical Brains require about 20% of the human energy supply. [Synapses lead to energy leakage and energy consumption in brain --- see link above]

• Children with Autism Have Extra Synapses in Brain (2014)
  
• Lack of neuron ‘pruning’ may be behind many brain-related conditions (2023)
  

We are getting "Metabolomic" biomarkers for Bipolar Disorder and Depression.

When we think about Metabolism we typically think about our ability to lose weight, but it is a lot more than that.

Metabolism is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms.

The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run cellular processes; the conversion of food to building blocks of proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates; and the elimination of metabolic wastes. --- Wikipedia