Cerebral connectivity and dynamics: Characteristics in children with autistic spectrum disorder
What is connectivity?
What is connectivity?
The brain, it is often said, is a huge network made up of innumerable nerve cells.
These days, information can spread around the world in an instant through SNSs, and all kinds of information is delivered to various parts of the brain through the cerebral network in the same way.
Connectivity may not be a familiar word, but it refers to the way that different parts of the brain are linked to each other.
For example, visual information flows in paths running:
Accipital lobe⇔parietal lobe⇔frontal lobe
or
Accipital lobe⇔temporal lobe⇔frontal lobe
like a soccer ball is passed from one player to the next, from one end of the field to the other, and this kind of linking is called connectivity.
Autistic spectrum disorder often features strong biases in cognitive functions, but several pieces of research led to the belief that these biases in cognitive functions are due to problems with cerebral connectivity. In other words, discussion is based on a position that suggests that there are connectivity problems affecting information within the brain, and that information is not conveyed properly within the brain.
Analysis of connectivity in autistic spectrum disorder through a new analysis method
The paper that I discuss today uses a new analysis method to reexamine the characteristics of connectivity in autistic spectrum disorder.
In the experiment, the brain waves of 31 children with typical development between 2 and 5 years of age and of children with autistic spectrum disorder between 2 years of age and 4 years, 11 months were measured when they looked at images of human faces, cars and the like, and investigated using a method that can measure connectivity in detail.
The results show that children with autistic spectrum disorder certainly did not have weaker connectivity with respect to visual cognition when compared to children with typical development, and in some cases, they had stronger connectivity.
The authors argue that the cause of the biases in cognitive functions, despite strong connectivity in children with autistic spectrum disorder, may be due to problems with the dynamics of connectivity.
Dynamics may not readily bring an image to mind, but think of it like this: when water flows, it moves smoothly if there are no obstacles. On the other hand, if water encounters hollows or narrow places, it slows or stagnates and does not flow as well.
It is similar with autistic spectrum disorder: certain parts flow well (have strong connectivity), but the overall flow is not smooth, which the authors think may be why biases occur in cognitive functions.
I thought that there are many ways of looking at this.
