Autism

Research on Autism is, fortunately, moving forward by leaps and bounds. New research from University of Toronto and Case Western Reserve University  neuroscientists  has pointed out that the brains of autistic children generate more information when the brain is at rest; 42% increase on average. The study offers a scientific explanation for the most typical characteristic of autism, a tendency to withdraw into one’s own inner world. The excess production of information may explain a child’s detachment from their environment. Published in Frontiers in Neuroinformatics (open access), this study is a follow-up to the authors’ prior finding that brain connections are different in autistic children.

José L. Pérez Velázquez, Roberto F. Galán, Information gain in the brain's resting state: A new perspective on autism, Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, 2013, DOI: 10.3389/fninf.2013.00037 (open access)

 Zhan, Y. et al., Deficient neuron-microglia signaling results in impaired functional brain connectivity and social behavior, Nature Neuroscience, 2014, DOI: 10.1038/nn.3641