Low endogenous neural noise in autism

A new paper from Dr Greg Davis and Dr Kate Plaisted-Grant discusses noise in neural networks, a phenomenon that has the potential to explain autism spectrum disorder behavioural and psychological features.

While previous studies have suggested that the brains of individuals with autism may have unusually high levels of endogenous neural noise, Greg and Kate propose the opposite, that people with autism may have unusually low levels of endogenous neural noise.

In typical brains, high levels of neural noise may have the beneficial effect of enhancing processing in perception, cognition and executive function, through facilitating generalization between stimuli and allowing the rapid formation of categories, for example. Conversely, low levels of neural noise may be conducive to the performance of tasks that require repetition or prolonged concentration. Low levels of neural noise in people with autism may be due to atypical brainstem activation. Further research is needed in order to understand fully the effect of differential levels of noise in neural networks.

Greg and Kate’s paper is published in the September issue of Autism; the abstract can be read here. A preprint copy of the article is available to read in the University's institution repository, here.