A team of cognitive scientists at University of Cambridge has uncovered a brain signature of this abnormal self-representation in people with autism. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the team found that when thinking about themselves, adults with autism have lower activity in two specific brain regions important for decision-making and social interactions than do healthy controls.
What’s more, individuals with autism have weaker connections between one of these areas, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), and regions harboring mirror neurons, cells that fire either when a person performs or observes a given action. The report — only the second imaging study to address the concept of ‘self’ in people with autism — was published in the February issue of Brain.
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For the title of best animal models, lab rats may be facing some competition from man’s best friends: dogs.
A class of medications widely used during pregnancy to treat asthma and prevent early labor increases the baby’s risk of autism and other psychiatric disorders, according to a controversial review in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Older men have a higher risk of fathering a child with autism, but — get this — only when their mate is younger than 30. So says the newest study to weigh in on the perennial debate about parental age and autism.
Individuals who carry a large and rare deletion on chromosome 16 that is associated with autism are likely to have developmental delay, be obese, or both, according to two studies published last week in Nature.
