Findings Offer New Opportunity To Understand Connection Between Primary Brain Functions and Behavioral Patterns in Autism

New research led by Carnegie Mellon University neuroscientists takes the first step toward deciphering the connection between general brain function and the emergent behavioral patterns in autism. Published in the journal Neuron, the study shows that autistic adults have unreliable neural sensory responses to visual, auditory and somatosensory, or touch, stimuli. This poor response reliability appears to be a fundamental neural characteristic of autism.

"Within the autism research community, most researchers are looking for the location in the brain where autism happens," said Ilan Dinstein, a postdoctoral researcher in Carnegie Mellon’s Department of Psychology and lead author of the study. "We’re taking a different approach and thinking about how a general characteristic of the brain could be different in autism - and how that might lead to behavioral changes."