Question: whats diffrent about the brain when someone has autism

Jen Todd Jones answered on 18 Mar 2013:

Hi Chloe

Autism is a hotly debated concept in psychology and neuroscience and we still don’t have all of the answers, it’s not great but it’s one of those exciting areas of science where we still don’t necessarily know all of the answers!

Autism is what we call a developmental disorder, because individuals are diagnosed with it usually I childhood, or when they are still developing. People without autism have specific typical traits or characteristics, but not everyone with autism and them all at once. One of the main things is not having theory of mind, or an understanding of other people having a mind outside of their own, this normally develops at about age five but usually doesn’t in people with autism.

Research examining the brain in people with autism usually finds a smaller number of cells across the brain, or brain cells that look or behave differently, this mostly happens right in the core of the brain and also in the cerebellum at the back just where your neck is. This is relevant to one way of looking at autism as a ‘fish-brain’ disorder, this is an old term used in science but it refers to the way that autism mostly has an effect int he parts of the brain that we call the fish or reptilian brain, because lower animals like fish only have those parts (the middle and the cerebellum, these control basic emotions, some memory and movement, the basic stuff).

But it’s important to try and understand this isn’t necessarily definitely the answer. In science you have to be sure about what did what – did the brain growing that way make the person autistic? Or did the person develop autism which then made the brain grow that way?

Jen