Lack of 'Mirror Neurons' Linked to Autism

FruFox writes "A recent study has pointed to a possible link between autism and lack of so-called 'mirror neurons' , either physically or functionally. This provides the first solid physical evidence to back up the theory that autism's root cause is a profound lack of empathy. This probably impacts the world of Asperger's Syndrome as well. Many Slashdot readers are undoubtedly familiar with the world of Asperger's / autism."

Comments

layer of abstraction

[brother bloat]

If I recall correctly, mirror neurons are associated with imitation and self-visualization. Somehow, this meshes well with the idea of autistics lacking "higher level abstraction" abilities. Specifically, mirror neurons provide a means of abstracting the idea of self. Let me explain.

I've read that in some parts of the autistic brain, "layers" of neurons are connected directly to each other, such that every neuron in a particular layer is connected to every other neuron in the next layer. However, in normal brains, a third layer exists between pairs of layers. In this way, normal brains require fewer synaptic connections, but longer axonal pathways (i.e. a given signal takes longer to be processed, but may travel through internal layers which modify and abstract features from outer layers).

This property is theorized to give rise, in some autistics, to "idiot savant" abilities; such individuals often excel at a particular skill or set of skills (such as multiplying large numbers together very quickly). For example, one might be able to multiply 5 digit numbers together in a couple of seconds. However, because of the lack of inter-layers which allow for abstractions (and possibly understanding/comprehension of the processed information), the same person may have no concious concept of the numerical value of real world things.

Re:layer of abstraction

[TheMohel]

I've read that in some parts of the autistic brain, "layers" of neurons are connected directly to each other, such that every neuron in a particular layer is connected to every other neuron in the next layer. However, in normal brains, a third layer exists between pairs of layers.

Link? It's been a few years since I took clinical neuroanatomy, but I don't recall running across this, and it seems quite unlikely. The formation of the neural layers is critical to the basic function of the brain (I mean any normal function) and disruption of this formation is likely to be catastrophic. Lissencephaly, a condition where the cortex forms abnormally (and fails to form normal gross features), is an example of such a condition, and one where the developmental outcome is uniformly horrible.

Re:Schizophrenia

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

While there are similarities in the two disorders (as well as with Asperger's) the tag "juvenile schizophrenia" is misleading, as Autism is not restricted to children.

That being said, further research into this pattern (such as to determine if there is an impact on schizophrenia) is of interest. As an aspie, I'm greatly appreciative of any information that can help me deal with the cards I've been dealt.

Cause or symptom?

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

This provides the first solid physical evidence to back up the theory that autism's root cause is a profound lack of empathy.

Wouldn't lack of empathy be a symptom of autism rather than a cause? Or that since the lack of mirror neurons is the cause, it gets expressed as a lack of empathy?

Re:Cause or symptom?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Good catch. I missed that in my initial response in this thread. Lack of empathy, inability to process non-verbal communication (particularly the non-verbal sort associated with inter-gender relations) in the same innate manner as the average person, are the symptoms of my own Asperger's that have impacted me the most.

THing is though, older aspies eventually work it out (the non-verbal communication/flirting/pass), just too late. It's almost as if the part of the brain that most people use for that sort of communication is wired into other reasoning processes in Aspergers and Autism subjects.

My great fear has always been that that part of my brain was (theoretically) repurposed to the skills that currently allow me to make a living, and that any cure might render me able to understand non-verbal subtext, but doom me to a life as a McDonald's manager.

Re:Good

[orgelspieler]

At first I just thought this was flame-bait. So I read the Wikipedia article on Asperger syndrome. I was surprised to find out that I apparently meet the DSM-IV definition. Hell, half of my friends meet either the DSM-IV criteria. Seeing as half of the requirements are basically not having other impairments, it's not surprising. The Gillberg criteria are a little more specific, but are no more useful. They seem to describe just about any Slashdotter, including orgelspieler

Let's see:

• lack of desire to interact with peers (OK... depends on how you define "interact" and "peers")
• lack of appreciation of social cues (any married man has this problem)
• repetative adherence to a narrow interest (pipe organs)
• superficially perfect expressive language (grammar facist)
• formal, pedantic language (hey look, a dupe!)
• misinterpretations of literal/implied meanings (jokes going over heads)
• peculiar, stiff gaze (at the computer screen)
• motor clmusienss

Yup, that's me.

Three related articles

[jd]

A study in Australia using fMRI showing why certain forms of autism adversely affect problem-solving abilities.

A Neurology journal article on the anatomy of Asperger's, as seen from fMRI scans

Another neurology article, on the anatomy of Autism, as seen from fMRI scans

The research at the Institute of Psychiatry, by Professor Declan Murphy is beginning to indicate that autism affects the frontal and mid-sections of the brain, whereas Aspergers appears to affect the frontal sections only. Nonetheless, other studies (not linked to here) have shown that those with asperger's have an elevated probability of having autistic children. In other words, there's good evidence they share mechanisms BUT there is also good evidence that autism outside of Asperger's involves additional mechanisms that are NOT present in Asperger's.

I asked the IoP about research on Asperger's and autism a while back, and they pointed me to the following lecture (which does not appear to be on the web anywhere):

Frith U. (2004) Emanuel Miller lecture: confusions and controversies about Asperger syndrome. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry & Allied Disciplines. 45(4):672-86, 2004 May

I hope this information is useful, trivially interesting or even interestingly trivial, depending on perspective.

Re:Schizophrenia

[jd]

The articles I linked to elsewhere in this discussion imply that Aspergers affects one section of the brain, but High and Low Functioning Autism affects two. I suggested there that this might mean that there are two independent mechanisms at play here, where those with Aspergers has one specific one and those with Autism have both.

I got to thinking though that this would mean you'd have to have some OTHER condition in which only the second of those mechanisms was present. I don't know what the research says on this, but is it possible that the second mechanism on its own is responsible for schizo-effective disorders (of which schizophrenia is the most serious)?

(This still means that Aspergers and Autism fall on the same spectrum, but would imply that HFA and LFA are Aspergers with a schizo-effective element. That doesn't sound right, but if that is NOT the case, we're looking at THREE independent mechanisms being involved in autism - at least - and I'm even less happy with the idea of having more variables than absolutely necessary to explain it.)

Re:Good

[crazyphilman]

"It's not wrong to be a geek. We are not sick. Don't buy into their lies."

Thank GOD! Finally someone said it.

It was bad enough back in the eighties, when I had to go through High School huddled in the hallway with my three friends (all of us were physics nerds) while popular-type assholes swung by trying to one-up each other, making fun of us.

And it was annoying when all of us engineering majors in college had to put up with shit all the time because business and liberal-arts majors treated us like we were some weird other species. I mean, god forbid we crack open the hood of our car and (gasp!) change a freakin' alternator for twenty bucks at the part shop instead of laying out two hundred to have a fat, sweaty, greasy guy do it for us (and make a mess of the wire connections! Don't these people have electrical tape???).

But, these days, every five minutes some psychologist schmuck is trying to play all phony-sympathetic with us, laying some story on us about how we're all "suffering" from some weirdo "syndrome" and we're all really "autistic" and so on.

HEY! SHRINKS OF THE WORLD! I'm a programmer! I make triple the national average salary, can fix, build, or break more different types of equipment than you know the names of, and I whupped your kid's honor-roll ass at Halo II last night! I'm just fine the way I am, and if you come over here trying to take my crazy away, I'm gonna give you an atomic wedgie, drag your ass in my unkempt bathroom, and give you a swirly for good measure! And I haven't cleaned my toilet in weeks! And I eat at Taco Bell regularly! Begone, go back to bothering the neurotics whose mothers make them dress funny!

Um... Heh heh. I guess this issue gets me a bit worked up. :)

Re:Good

[JabberWokky]

You should probably be informed that people with Aspergers generally cannot live unassisted. My fiance's brother has Aspergers and lives in an assisted living facility with many others like him. While it seems trendy to self-diagnose with Aspergers ("Misfit socially? That sounds like me!"), the real mental disease is significantly less "being a geek or nerd" (your words) and much more a debilitating mental disorder.

He is a nice guy - outgoing and cheerful, just like most people with Aspergers. If you talk to him long enough, he simply starts looping over and over about every 20 minutes on the same sequence of subjects. He's very smart -- he can list off the businesses that have occupied any given corner or strip mall (and he tends to as you drive around), but he can't find his way home unless it's the same way he drove there.

People hear that and think "I know somebody like that", or even "that's like me", but don't realize how profound the level of these symptoms are. He speaks about his dead cat in present tense because that's how he always has spoken about her. He literally cannot comprehend that somebody is lying to him. He threw a superbowl party with GI Joe tablecloths because that's how his parties were decorated when he was a little kid.

People (other than hypochondriacs) never forget where their keys are and then leap to conclude that they have a chronic and fatal disease like ALS. People seldom talk to themselves and then self-diagnose schizophrenia. Lately however, it seems like it has become very trendy in certain geek circle to decide you have Aspergers or a "light case" of Aspergers.

If they spent time with people living in facilities with legitimately diagnosed Aspergers, they might reconsider their self-diagnosis. You might reconsider it being an "attack on the intelligent" and more of a bizarre confusion regarding what the mental disorder entails.

--
Evan

Re:Good

[GigsVT]

I think you've summed up the problem well, what the diagnosis was intended for and what's it becoming applied to are two different things.

more of a bizarre confusion regarding what the mental disorder entails.

I agree it's a confusion, but to me it doesn't seem bizarre, I believe the diagnostic criteria are poorly written and overly broad, to the point where way too many people are getting diagnosed (the wikipedia article for aspergers cites numbers like 7 expected cases per 1000, yet diagnosis rates are shooting up, way up).

It's not just aspergers, but that one is close to my heart since my chosen lifestyle and my personality almost just fits into what they are calling diagnostic criteria.

Mental Disorders Strike Nearly Half of All Americans

Do you really think half of all americans are mentally ill? Discounting certain election-induced mass delusions, I seriously doubt it.

It's becoming a major industry to create disease where there is none, to make any nonconformity a disease. It's a dangerous cross between commercial interest in pushing designer prescription drugs, and government interest in supressing non-conformity, and removing personal responsibility. Removing responsibility removes freedom.

It also does a disservice to the truely mentally ill like your brother in law. It clouds the issue of what is and isn't a mental disorder. Him being lumped in with millions of kids with normal behavior problems, and thousands of nerdy adults that want an easy cop-out does not do him any good.

Re:Schizophrenia

[jd]

Not a problem. I'm Asperger's myself - hence a lot of MY curiosity! :) There are a number of theories - and therefore a number of treatment approaches - out there, but now that actual mechanism data seems to exist, pdocs might have a better idea of how to approach Asperger's.

In my case, it's a little confused since I have a mild seizure disorder AND have been diagnosed bipolar as well. However, the treatment I'm on for those does seem to mitigate the negative side of Aspergers some. However, without a baseline fMRI and an on-meds fMRI (plus an expert in this field), I have no hard data on that. It could equally well be that the other stuff aggravated whatever the Asperger mechanism is.

The extensive research going on is excellent - I'm surprised it took so long for them to use fMRI, I would have thought that one obvious, although I've been told in the past by my own doctor that fMRI couldn't possibly show anything up. Clearly they were wrong on that. (* Gloat *)

Some more information for the obsessive:

• Neuroanatomical differences between Aspergers and Autism
  
• Home page for Asperger's Disorder, though how the disorder can type is something I don't know.
  
• Another quick intro but good if you don't have gigantic magnetic resonance imaging equiptment in the basement.
  
• Not sure if this is a dupe, but it goes in depth into the differences shown by fMRI.
  

Re:Good

[sparkes]

An excellent point well made.

I have aspergers as does my 7 year old son and we couldn't survive day to day life without a lot of support from our loved ones which we don't always acknowledge due to our lack of empathy generally. If it's hard for someone with aspergers it's harder for those that support them and I wouldn't have noticed this without a hell of a lot of help.

The inability to spot a lie makes life difficult among people who would like to take advantage of me, luckily I have learned the hard way to avoid these people but it led me to live an almost friendless existance for many years until I discovered it was certain types of people that led to my unhappiness.

I have suffered with depression for years caused by my inability to understand other people. I don't believe I or my son have a problem but the majority of people who lie and accept they are being lied to on a daily basis should probably book themselves into a facility for some care ;-)

as for the getting lost unless your friend follows the same route both myself and my son are lucky in the fact that we can 'see' maps and know the topology of the surrounding area automatically. Unfortunatly this does make it even harder than normal when we are lost. It's impossible to describe the feelings I have when I don't 'know' where I am in terms I think you could understand this makes it impossible to sleep on journeys.

Like most people with aspergers I have things that I think should be done in a certain way and my son also has things he likes done in certain ways you can't imagine the clash that happens when these two ideas clash.

On the positive side I can talk to my son like an adult on some subjects (his maths is excellent) but as a negative he is very late at developing in some areas.

Certainly in the UK part of the diagnosis is that it 'has' to affect your day to day ability to live unaided.

geeks aren't generally aspies but aspies are often geeks ;-)