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wogaboo
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27 Aug 2012, 6:51 pm

I keep hearing that in autism, the brain has lots of local connections, but the autistic brain lacks long connections connecting distant regions of the brain. This makes a certain amount of sense. For example autistics lack social skills and social skills require you to not only pay attention to what people are saying, but also the tone of voice and facial expressions with which they say it. Since processing language and processing tones and facial expressions are probably all separate brain processes, failure to connect these disparate processes may explain autistic social impairments. In general, it seems like autistics are good at seeing the trees and bad at seeing the forest which is exactly the type of big picture metaphor autistics might misunderstand. However savant skills might require lots of local connections which is why autistics are often prodigious in these domains.

I wonder if it will soon be possible to diagnose people with autism based on the number of long range connections they have, and perhaps ranks all humans on a single unilinear scale of autism.

But what causes this lack of long range connections? Does too many local connections prevent long range connections? Are people with long range connections smarter than people with local connections? More creative? Or is intelligence just about who has the most connections period? The person with the biggest brain?

Perhaps in the future, IQ will be measured by counting the number of connections in your brain multiplied by how long each connection is.



BorgPrince
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27 Aug 2012, 6:59 pm

wogaboo wrote:
But what causes this lack of long range connections?


The answer to that question will most likely also be the answer to the question, "What causes autism?"

Quote:
Does too many local connections prevent long range connections?


The autistic brain does not have too many "local connections," it has a lack of "long range connections."



wogaboo
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27 Aug 2012, 8:45 pm

BorgPrince wrote:
wogaboo wrote:
But what causes this lack of long range connections?


The answer to that question will most likely also be the answer to the question, "What causes autism?"

Quote:
Does too many local connections prevent long range connections?


The autistic brain does not have too many "local connections," it has a lack of "long range connections."


Is the lack of long range connections CAUSED by an abundance of local connections? Perhaps too many grow too soon, preventing the long range connections from having a chance?



Tollorin
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27 Aug 2012, 10:08 pm

wogaboo wrote:
But what causes this lack of long range connections? Does too many local connections prevent long range connections? Are people with long range connections smarter than people with local connections? More creative? Or is intelligence just about who has the most connections period? The person with the biggest brain?

Perhaps in the future, IQ will be measured by counting the number of connections in your brain multiplied by how long each connection is.

Study of gifted peoples show a lot of long range connections, so it is supposed to make you smarter. I have no idea what it mean for the brain of the those with giftedness and autism however.


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