Inside an Autistic Brain

August 5, 2008

An autistic person’s brain suffers from some communication problems that mimic the condition itself. An autistic person cannot always communicate with the surrounding world, and some parts of that person’s brain do not communicate with each other either. That’s what Marcel Just and his colleagues report in Social Neuroscience. The basic problem is that different areas of the brain—including ones related to social interactions—do not talk to each other very effectively.

Just believes that knowing this about an autistic brain could lead to better therapies. For example, if scientists know which brain connections do not work so well, activities could possibly be developed to strengthen those connections. Maybe like targeting areas of your body for improvement, the same could be done with the brain. If that could be done, then beefing up the connections in an autistic person’s brain might lead to better communication with the world.

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