Episode 8: The Neuropsychology of Autism

• Using EEGs to diagnose autism spectrum disorders in infants 
• Scientists in Boston, MA are finding ways of identifying children at risk of autism at very young ages (9 months).  This has huge implications for early intervention services and point to neurological substrates for the development of ASD.
• '“Many neuroscientists believe that autism reflects a ‘disconnection syndrome,’ by which distributed populations of neurons fail to communicate efficiently with one another,” explains Nelson. “The current paper supports this hypothesis by suggesting that the brains of infants at high risk for developing autism exhibit different patterns of neural connectivity, though the relationship between entropy and the density of neural arbors remains to be explored.” (Neural arbors are projections of neurons that form synapses or connections with other neurons.)'
• Read more about the neuropsychology of autism and access our references here!
• Read more about fractal psychology here!