Autism and the Brain: What Does the Research Say?

bal-cheng (42)in #psychology • 6 years ago

For some of my first posts in steemit with Psychology tags, I hereby want to give an overview of the most useful theories about basic brain autism. During the first two blog posts I will cover a total of 4 theories - but keep in mind there are also others that need to be clearly in the brain of autism.

In this first post, I will review the hypotheses of social motivation and hypotheses of the world that are too intense. to the minds of the brain that have not been maximally clever thinking and need to learn in this field.

Social Motivation Hypothesis

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One of the core symptoms of autism is: the lack of social interaction, especially for children. Parents often notice that their child with autism is less likely to show them toys and other images, or to spontaneously interact with other children or adults compared to neurotypical children. The hypothesis of social motivation proposes that this may be due to a brain reward system for thinking carefully and taught in cash. We know that for neurotypical individuals, social interactions are beneficial. For example, research has shown that eye contact with an attractive face activates a brain reward center (Kampe, Frith, Dolan, & Frith, 2001). The idea behind the hypothesis of social motivation is that perhaps children with autism do not find social interaction as a reward as their neurotypical counterpart - which will explain why children with autism tend not to engage in social interactions. Neurosciences research from my laboratory (Stavropoulos & Carver, 2014), and others (Kohls et al., 2018) have provided evidence for the hypothesis of social motivation. We found that children with autism had less brain activity associated with rewards than their neurotypical counterparts when they anticipated social information.

What's more interesting is: how this hypothesis can be extended to better understand limited interest in autism. Recent research has found that children with autism have a stronger reward response to their own limited interest than social rewards for autistic minded people. Similarly, our group found that children with autism had a larger approach and rewarded brain activity while anticipating non-social images compared to social images. with a very strong catch and a perfect memory.

These findings provide an interesting picture of what might happen to the brains of autistic children. Perhaps restricted interests (such as video games, trains, or cars) are very useful, and social interactions are not. It may be the case (though this needs to be learned) that the reward system in autism evolves differently from the reward system in neurotypical children, and the reward value of limited interest (and non-social) is greater than social interaction.

The World Hypothesis is Too Deep and Depressed

Where the social motivation hypothesis focuses only on social behavior, the overly intense world hypothesis (IWH) speaks of social behavior and sensory phenomena. The IWH says that children with autism may have too much brain activity, which makes it difficult to selectively pay attention to some things and not others (Markram, Rinaldi, & Markram, 2007; Markram & Markram, 2010). For example, if you find it difficult to "lock in" all the information that comes to you during a conference call at work, it would be difficult to selectively pay attention to one person's voice and ignore the rest. Probably similar for children with autism. Perhaps children with autism experience the world as extraordinary, and too intense. That could explain why children with autism often experience a voice that is too loud, or a fabric that is too rough or rough.

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In terms of social behavior, the IWH says that because social interaction is unpredictable and involves a lot of sensory stimulation, children with autism experience difficulties and are often overwhelmed by this interaction. This hypothesis has interesting implications as to why many autistic children react strongly to various sensations, and why sensory symptoms are often reported by parents and caregivers. This is also a unique theory because it assumes that the roots of social deficits and sensory sensitivity in ASD may be the same: too responsive in certain areas of the brain.

Areas of the brain that IWH thinks may be too active to work and include the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. The prefrontal cortex (sometimes called the neocortex) is where high-level brain function occurs. In this case, the higher order means complex brain functions such as attention, memory, executive function and planning, and social cognition. Several studies have shown that individuals with autism have hyper activity (or more activity) in these brain regions compared with their usual development
friends of the same age.

The amygdala is an almond-shaped brain structure that is essential for interpreting and "marking" things that are emotionally important in our environment. For example, if you see a snake and feel a "scream" of fear, you can thank your amygdala. The amygdala has "marked" the serpent as something important (and frightening). Similarly, if you hear a song that takes you back to a very emotional moment in your life (such as a difficult parting, or your marriage), it is also your amygdala. As you can imagine, the amygdala sometimes "marks" the frightening things we expect - that's why these brain areas are important to our understanding of anxiety and fear disorders (eg Cottraux, 2005). In autism, excessive activation in the amygdala is potentially related to why these individuals find an unpleasant, or even unpleasant, social situation.

According to IWH, it may be the excessive activity of the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala that explain the hyper-individual sensitivity of the spectrum. Interestingly, this theory can also explain the extraordinary talents of some individuals on the spectrum. For example, individuals with autism may have amazing memories, can pay attention to very small and important details, or perfect tones.

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