Brain Facts:
Autism

Autism/Asperger
—Male-Female Differences

Boys are four times as likely as girls to develop autism and ten times more likely to be diagnosed with Asperger’s. Simon Baron-Cohen makes the radical proposal that the neural profile of people with these disorders represent the utter extreme of the prototypical “male” brain.

Eye Contact

One reason autistic infants avoid eye contact seem to be that it makes them anxious—when  they look at eyes, their amygdala reacts wildly, indicating intense fear. So instead of looking at a person’s eyes, the autistic child looks at the other person’s mouth, which conveys little about someone’s inner state. While this tactic lessens their anxiety, it means autistic kids miss out on the rudiments of face-to-face synchrony, let alone mindsight.

Face Reading

A simple rule of thumb has emerged in studies of those with autism: the less activation in the brain’s face-reading area while they look at someone, the greater their interpersonal difficulties.