Autistic brain is no different from the brain of a healthy person Bashny.Net

Until recently it was believed that the brain of a person with autism is different from the brain of a healthy person, but it is not tak

new document, released recently, threatens to turn the idea of ​​the neurology of autism on its head. This document is called "Anatomical abnormalities in autism." Its authors, the Israeli researcher Shlomi Haar and his colleagues report that there is virtually no difference in the anatomy of the brain in people with autism and people without it. The significance of this study emphasizes the enormous size of the sample: experts examined the results of structural MRI, received from 539 people with a diagnosis of "high-functional autism spectrum disorders" and 573 MRI of healthy people. The age range of the subjects ranged from 6 to 35 years old.



What did the scientists find?

In fact, not too much. Firstly, the group with autism had no large differences in the average volume of the brain. Secondly, the two groups do not have any significant differences between the areas of the brain. Autistic was observed only increasing the volume of the cerebral ventricles, but this increase was not significant further enlarged ventricles are not specific symptoms of autism, so that this difference can be ignored. In its report Haar and his colleagues concluded that there is no tangible evidence of inter-group differences in the anatomy of the brain in autistic and healthy people. No significant anatomical differences in specific areas of the brain, including the amygdala, hippocampus, cerebellum and corpus callosum most segments. These results, in turn, suggests that many previously registered anatomical abnormalities may have a very low scientific and clinical importance.

Now it can be assumed that this document could lead to a complete revision of the concept of autism. After all, today there are hundreds of scientific studies claiming that there is a serious difference in the structure of the brain in autistic and healthy people, and all of these studies convincingly refutes Harr. At the same time we should not forget that the document Harrah considered solely the anatomy of the brain, and it does not contradict the research related to the functions of the brain, as it does not conflict with the work of microanatomy and neuropathology.

via factroom.ru