9/18 What Is Neurodiversity?

Every semester, DNA begins with a simple question: What is neurodiversity?

This time, we’re grounding that question in recent research - specifically Earp et al. (2024), “Neurodiversity beyond autism: Mapping research gaps and future directions” (Trends in Cognitive Sciences) - to explore how the concept of neurodiversity has expanded far beyond its original boundaries.

Too often, “neurodivergent” is treated as shorthand for ADHD or autism. But the neurodiversity paradigm also includes a much wider landscape of neurological, neuroimmune, and chronic conditions - from epilepsy, POTS, and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) to migraine, Tourette’s, OCD, traumatic brain injury, and chronic fatigue. These diagnoses shape not only cognition but also the body’s relationship to sensory input, emotion regulation, and energy.

We’ll discuss:

• What actually qualifies as neurodivergence — and why definitions matter for advocacy and inclusion

• How neurological and chronic conditions intersect and overlap (the “neuroimmune bridge”)

• Shared experiences across diagnoses: overstimulation, fatigue, executive dysfunction, and fluctuating cognition

• What the Earp et al. (2024) paper reveals about research gaps and under-representation

• How the neurodiversity movement can better include medical and chronic-illness identities

• Why visibility for less-recognized neurotypes (like dysautonomia and seizure disorders) is essential for real accessibility reform

As always we meet in Rueben Cook, Room 207, at 7PM.