Neural processing differences may lead to behavioral patterns seen in autism

In light of the recent study demonstrating that neuronal deficits may be reversible in autism, a new study published Thursday in the journal Neuron has found that people with autism have varying neural responses to sensory input in the form of visual, auditory and somatosensory stimuli when compared with neurotypical individuals. The researchers suspect that these neural processing differences are a key characteristic of autism, possibly leading to many of its hallmark behavioral deficits.

The neuroscientists from Carnegie Mellon University selected 14 adults with autism and 14 without autism, between the ages of 19 and 39, for the study. Each subject participated in various sensory tasks while connected to an fMRI machine to track neural activity. The sensory tasks included tracking moving dots, listening to tones and experiencing puffs of air, each targeting the visual, auditory and somatosensory senses respectively.

Upon looking at the brain activity on each individual's fMRI scan, the researchers found that those diagnosed with autism demonstrated considerably lower predictability of neural activity. That is, in the typical subjects, neural activity could be predicted between different tasks, whereas those diagnosed with autism could not be reliably predicted. This result was repeated across each sensory activity.

This unreliability of neural activity may be the culprit when it comes to deficits in social skills, language development and sensory processing. This may also account for the extreme variability in how different individuals with autism are affected, given the erratic nature of their neural processing.

While this study does not demonstrate a definitive cause of autism, it may be evidence of a biomarker, or sign, of what may occur in the brains of those with autism during development, and what genetic factors are responsible.

If you enjoy my articles, you can click on "subscribe" at the top of the page and you'll receive notice when new ones are published. You can also follow me on Twitter: @ThePashaB.