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Neuroanatomical and neurophysiological clues to the nature of autism

  • Chapter
Neuroimaging in child neuropsychiatric disorders

Abstract

Of all the developmental brain disorders, autism is perhaps the most fascinating, the most mysterious, and the most telling fascinating, because of its impact on absolutely every aspect of a child’s perception of and interaction with the surrounding world; mysterious, because of the complexity of the many interacting brain systems it perturbs; telling, because it strikes at the social, cognitive, and linguistic abilities that seem, at least on the surface, so essential to one’s very humanity. During the past few decades, the riddle of autism has begun to yield to advances in the study of autistic behaviour and the biological foundations which affect it. The examination of brain anatomy, physiology, histology and function in people with autism continues to supply new information on the nature and aetiology of this complex syndrome. This chapter will focus primarily on the neuroanatomical and neurophysiological abnormalities found in autistic subjects, particularly those seen in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and event-related potential (ERP) studies.

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  1. M. Belmonte
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Belmonte, M., Carper, R. (1998). Neuroanatomical and neurophysiological clues to the nature of autism. In: Neuroimaging in child neuropsychiatric disorders. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-95848-9_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-95848-9_15

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