What can studying white matter reveal about autism?
Advanced imaging techniques may reveal more precise pictures of how of the brain’s regions communicate with one another. How much of the neurodevelopmental riddle of autism lies in these tracts?
Advanced imaging techniques may reveal more precise pictures of how of the brain’s regions communicate with one another. How much of the neurodevelopmental riddle of autism lies in these tracts?
New techniques to scan the brain can produce exquisitely detailed views of white matter, which contains the long cellular fibers that connect neurons. Many of the advances are emerging from the Human Connectome Project, a five-year push to map the brain’s wiring.
To understand the amygdala’s role in autism, researchers should study its connections with other brain structures and explore its role in development, says Ralph Adolphs.
Simon Fisher made headlines in 2001 for finding the first gene related to language. He has been following FOXP2 ever since, and has found that it is important in autism and other psychiatric disorders.
A rare birth defect offers a unique perspective on the connectivity theory of autism. Up to one-third of those missing all or part of the corpus callosum, a thick tract of nerve fibers connecting the left and right brain hemispheres, meet the diagnostic criteria for autism, several recent studies suggest.
People with autism, unlike controls, do not show distinct patterns of brain activity when evaluating scenarios that require them to infer others’ thoughts, according to two studies published in the past two months.
A new method that renders the brain transparent generates unprecedented views of long-range neuronal connections, researchers reported 10 April in Nature.
New methods to deal with motion artifacts in brain imaging data are critically important, says Mike Tyszka.
Characterizing the brain’s network organization may help us understand autism, says Damien Fair.
Growing evidence suggests that abnormal connectivity in the brain underlies autism, but conflicting interpretations persist about where and how the dysfunction occurs. How do we investigate the underlying mechanisms of this theory?