Study Shows Autistic Brains Create More Information at Rest

New research published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroinformatics found that brain connections are different in autistic children, generating an average of 42-percent more information while at rest. The study offers a scientific explanation for a common characteristic of autism — withdrawal into one’s own inner world. The excess production of information may explain a child’s detachment from their environment, including interaction with other people. The authors of the study quantified information by recording activity between brain regions with magnetoencephalography (MEG), allowing them to determine the inputs to the brain in the resting state and interpret the child’s introspection level. The study provides quantitative support for the relatively new “Intense World Theory” of autism, which describes the disorder as the result of hyper-functioning neural circuitry, leading to a state of over arousal. To read more about this study, click here.