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Spectrum: Autism Research News

Tag: default network

February 2023
Brain scans displaying activity in areas linked with social behavior.

People’s perceptions of ‘social’ animations don’t always square with researchers’ labels

by  /  22 February 2023

The finding calls into question differences between autistic and non-autistic people on a decades-old theory-of-mind test involving interacting geometric shapes.

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June 2022
a grid of 9 brain maps showing activity in different areas of the brain

Brain networks diverge in autism by toddlerhood

by  /  8 June 2022

By as early as age 2, autistic children appear to have a smaller salience network and a larger default mode network, among other differences, than children without the condition.

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January 2021
Baby getting an MRI scan

Imaging study casts doubt on cerebellum’s role in autism during infancy

by  /  13 January 2021

Connections between the cerebellum and brain networks do not seem to contribute substantially to the emergence of autism traits.

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September 2020
Brain images showing differences in signaling in autistic and normal brains.

Brain signal imbalance tracks with sex and with camouflaging autism traits

by  /  17 September 2020

Autistic men show a greater imbalance between excitatory and inhibitory signaling in the brain than autistic women do, which could explain sex differences in ‘camouflaging.’

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August 2020
Collage illustration showing Lucina Uddin portrait with eye movements and brain images

Rethinking ‘noise’ in autism research

by  /  11 August 2020

Lucina Uddin says researchers should be cautious when analyzing their findings, because ‘noisy’ data may actually hold important information about brain functioning.

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June 2020
three teens chatting

Brain responses to social stimuli may vary by sex in autism

by  /  29 June 2020

Autistic girls’ brains respond more strongly to social stimuli than do autistic boys’.

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December 2019
Two sides of a 3D human brain showing different areas highlighted in various colors

Brains of autistic people show unusual left-right symmetry

by  /  4 December 2019

The hemispheres in autistic people’s brains are more symmetrical than those of their typical peers, but it is unclear what this difference means.

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May 2019
overlapping network of connections in the brain

The connectivity theory of autism, explained

by  /  1 May 2019

A growing body of evidence suggests that autism involves atypical communication between brain regions, but how and where in the brain this plays out is unclear.

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March 2019

Large set of brain scans reveals no telltale signs of autism

by  /  21 March 2019

The brains of autistic children show few differences from those of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or even of controls.

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November 2018
Three columns of brain images show patterns of brain connections.

Repetitive behaviors tied to brain activity patterns in toddlers

by  /  29 November 2018

Children who have repetitive behaviors, a core autism trait, may show particular patterns of brain activity as early as 1 year of age.

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