New Autism research Challenges traditional views

The traditional view of high end Autism has been that it arises in large part because of problems that the Autistic person has with responding to others - that the Autistic have an impaired ability to comprehend "the other".

Recent research findings published in the journal Neuron by Baylor College of Medicine researchers now turn this traditional view upside down.

The research appears to show that individuals with high end of the autism spectrum disorder actually have an inability to model "self" which causes a disability in understanding the world as a whole.

Dr. P. Read Montague Jr., professor of neuroscience, and director of the Human Neuroimaging Lab and the Computational Psychiatry Unit at BCM used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner to scan the brains of "high functioning" autistic individuals. The research found a "signature" in the brain that identified those with autism. This level of activity correlated with the severity of the autistic symptoms. The less activity - the more serious the symptoms. This could result in a test which would speed diagnosis.

The team used a technique called hyperscanning, developed in Montague's laboratory, which allowed them to scan two brains simultaneously while the research subjects played a trust game.
One player received an amount of money and then had to send whatever amount he or she wanted to the other player via a computer message. This amount is then tripled the second player then decides how much of this tripled amount to send back. The game is played over several rounds.

Previous work had shown that an area called the cingulate cortex was where most of the activity occured during the trust game.

The researchers compared the brain responses of normal subjects with "high functioning" autistic subjects and found that the autistic subjects did not play the game differently from their partners, who were taken from a population of similar teens without autism. Both groups of subjects made similar amounts of money overall and round by round.

However, the scans revealed that the the autistic youngsters' "self" responses were dim compared to normal subjects and the more severe the autistic symptoms the dimmer the response.

It was clear that the Autistic subjects cognitively understood the game but had a very low level of 'self' response which correlated with the severity of their autism.

"To have a good self concept, you have to be able to decide if the shared outcome is due to the other person or due to you," said Montague. "If people can't see themselves as a distinct entities at deeper levels, there is a disconnect."

Chris and Uta Frith (University College London) writing in the journal Neuron said, "This is an exciting result because it suggests that some mechanisms of social interaction are intact in these high-functioning cases. What is the critical difference between the self phase and the other phase? We believe that the simple distinction of self versus other is not adequate. "It involves higher-order mentalizing: you care what another person thinks of you, and even further, you care that the other person trusts you. You would not do this when playing against a computer. In autism there is no difference".

Further research to test the "model of self" aspects of Autism are anticipated which may throw light on the contribution of this deficit with people who are less high functioning. This research may also suggest intriguing possibilities for other ways in which to help people with autistic spectrum disorder.

Research published February 7, 2008, journal Neuron, (Cell Press. )

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