The Brains of Autistic Children create more information while at rest

Quinn, an autistic boy, and the line of toys he made before falling asleep. 

Repeatedly stacking or lining up objects is a behaviour commonly associated with autism. 

Credit: Wikipedia.

New research from Case Western Reserve University and University of Toronto neuroscientists finds that the brains of autistic children generate more information at rest – a 42% increase on average.

The study offers a scientific explanation for the most typical characteristic of autism – withdrawal into one's own inner world.

The excess production of information may explain a child's detachment from their environment.

Published at the end of December in Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, this study is a follow-up to the authors' prior finding that brain connections are different in autistic children.

This paper determined that the differences account for the increased complexity within their brains.

Roberto Fernández Galán

"Our results suggest that autistic children are not interested in social interactions because their brains generate more information at rest, which we interpret as more introspection in line with early descriptions of the disorder," said Roberto Fernández Galán, PhD, senior author and associate professor of neurosciences at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine.

The authors quantified information as engineers normally do but instead of applying it to signals in electronic devices, they applied it to brain activity recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG).

They showed that autistic children's brains at rest generate more information than non-autistic children.

This may explain their lack of interest in external stimuli, including interactions with other people.

The researchers also quantified interactions between brain regions, i.e., the brain's functional connectivity, and determined the inputs to the brain in the resting state allowing them to interpret the children's introspection level.

José L. Pérez Velázquez

"This is a novel interpretation because it is a different attempt to understand the children's cognition by analyzing their brain activity," said José L. Pérez Velázquez, PhD, first author and professor of neuroscience at University of Toronto Institute of Medical Science and Department of Pediatrics, Brain and Behavior Center.

"Measuring cognitive processes is not trivial; yet, our findings indicate that this can be done to some extent with well-established mathematical tools from physics and engineering."

Henry and Kamila Markram

This study provides quantitative support for the relatively new "Intense World Theory" of autism proposed by neuroscientists Henry and Kamila Markram of the Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland, which describes the disorder as the result of hyper-functioning neural circuitry, leading to a state of over-arousal.

More generally, the work of Galán and Pérez Velázquez is an initial step in the investigation of how information generation in the brain relates to cognitive/psychological traits and will begin to frame neurophysiological data into psychological aspects.

The team now aims to apply a similar approach to patients with schizophrenia.

More Information: José Luis Pérez Velázquez and Roberto Fernández Galán published this Original Research article.'Information Gain in the Brain’s Resting State: A New Perspective on Autism'

Childhood psychological problems create long-term economic losses

A first-of-its-kind study examining the long-term economic consequences of childhood psychological disorders finds the conditions diminish people's ability to work and earn as adults, costing $2.1 trillion over the lifetimes of all affected Americans.

People who suffer from childhood conditions such as depression and substance abuse are less likely to be married, attain less education and see their income reduced by about 20 percent over their lifetimes, according to findings published online by the journal Social Science & Medicine.

"This study shows childhood psychological disorders can cause significant long-lasting harm and can have far-reaching impact on individuals over their lifetimes," said James P. Smith, the study's lead author and corporate chair of economics at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. "Our findings illustrate what the enormous potential might be of identifying and treating these problems early in life."

Researchers examined information from a large study that has followed American families for more than 40 years and found evidence that the impact of childhood psychological problems have lasting impact across many measures of economic success. The study is unique because siblings from the same family were followed in the panel, allowing the researchers to compare one sibling with childhood psychological problems to a brother or sister who did not have such problems.

People who reported having psychological problems during childhood averaged $10,400 less income per year when compared to siblings who did not have similar problems. The lower income was partly a consequence of working an average of seven weeks fewer per year.

If about one in 20 adult Americans experienced these psychological problems during their childhood years (about the current prevalence), the total lifetime economic damages for all those affected would be $2.1 trillion. This estimate does not take into consideration the non-economic costs such has lower quality of life.

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