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Asperger's and Brain Wiring

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melanieeee
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16 Apr 2012, 6:10 am

What is the evidence that the brains of people with asperger's are 'wired' differently. I've heard it a lot but I am not really sure if I'm suppose to take it literally. Thanks.



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16 Apr 2012, 6:39 am

I've often wondered about this one myself...


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MotherKnowsBest
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16 Apr 2012, 6:50 am

Messages in the brain are sent by electrical impulses through cellss called neurons and the junctions where these cells join, called synapses. The electrical impulse cannot jump across these gaps. It gets carried by molecules called neurotransmitters. Research indicates that these 'synapses' don't work in the same way.

Research also shows that people on the spectrum have genetic mutations which disrupt the amounts of neurotransmitters present, particularly serotonin, GABA and glutamate.



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16 Apr 2012, 6:52 am

Quote:
There were 25 resulting clusters summarizing studies of autism and 14 resulting clusters summarizing studies of Asperger syndrome. These represented significantly lower or higher grey matter volumes in participantswith either condition compared with typically developing controls (Fig. 1 and Table 3).
The ALE of autism studies generated a summary pattern of lower grey matter volumes in the cerebellum, right uncus, dorsal hippocampus and middle temporal gyrus in participants with autism compared with controls; however, grey matter volumes were greater in numerous brain regions, including the bilateral caudate, prefrontal lobe and ventral temporal lobe.
The ALE of Asperger syndrome studies indicated that grey matter volumes were lower in the bilateral amygdala/hippocampal gyrus regions, bilateral superior frontal gyri and left occipital gyrus in participants with Asperger syndrome compared with controls. Additional regions of lower grey matter volume were identified in the right hemisphere in the cerebellum, putamen, precuneus and medial frontal gyrus. Grey matter volumes in participants with Asperger syndrome compared with controls were observed in only a limited number of regions, including the bilateral inferior parietal lobule and the left fusiform gyrus.


http://www.cma.ca/multimedia/staticContent/HTML/N0/l2/jpn/vol-36/issue-6/pdf/pg412.pdf


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MotherKnowsBest
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16 Apr 2012, 7:06 am

Eloa wrote:
Quote:
There were 25 resulting clusters summarizing studies of autism and 14 resulting clusters summarizing studies of Asperger syndrome. These represented significantly lower or higher grey matter volumes in participantswith either condition compared with typically developing controls (Fig. 1 and Table 3).
The ALE of autism studies generated a summary pattern of lower grey matter volumes in the cerebellum, right uncus, dorsal hippocampus and middle temporal gyrus in participants with autism compared with controls; however, grey matter volumes were greater in numerous brain regions, including the bilateral caudate, prefrontal lobe and ventral temporal lobe.
The ALE of Asperger syndrome studies indicated that grey matter volumes were lower in the bilateral amygdala/hippocampal gyrus regions, bilateral superior frontal gyri and left occipital gyrus in participants with Asperger syndrome compared with controls. Additional regions of lower grey matter volume were identified in the right hemisphere in the cerebellum, putamen, precuneus and medial frontal gyrus. Grey matter volumes in participants with Asperger syndrome compared with controls were observed in only a limited number of regions, including the bilateral inferior parietal lobule and the left fusiform gyrus.


http://www.cma.ca/multimedia/staticContent/HTML/N0/l2/jpn/vol-36/issue-6/pdf/pg412.pdf


Grey matter is the group name for neurons and synapses because they can only be seen individually under a microscope. In a scan they just appear as 'grey matter'.



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16 Apr 2012, 7:12 am

The "wired differently" really refers mainly to abnormal white matter connectivity, not neurotransmitter abnormalities. While neurotransmitter levels are surely out of whack in ASDs as they are with other neuropsych disorders, the biochemistry behind neurotransmitters has nothing to do with actual wiring of the brain. Rather, neurotransmitters are just message carriers. Their abnormalities relate to gene expression of proteins and functioning of enzymes and other things. But the actual connectivity is largely a white matter issue. While I'm sure that white matter connectivity plays a large role, I think that abnormal gray matter is downplayed. I'm a big believer that obsessive-compulsive behaviors result in too MUCH gray matter from lack of pruning. I think it would be interesting to see if those with AS and OCD (like myself) have more gray matter whereas people with ASDs who don't have comorbid OCD have more white matter.


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16 Apr 2012, 8:30 am

Is they any papers on PET scans.


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OddDuckNash99
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16 Apr 2012, 8:38 am

TechnoDog wrote:
Is they any papers on PET scans.

I'm sure there are PET studies on ASDs, but PET doesn't measure the wiring of the brain. It measures the glucose metabolism of a radioactive glucose tracer. fMRI by itself also doesn't look at wiring. The type of technology that studies connectivity specifically is DTI (Diffusion Tensor Imaging). fMRI can make assumptions about connectivity based on the statistics of activation in regions of interest, but it doesn't directly measure connectivity. fMRI measures the BOLD signal, which stands for Blood Oxygen-Level Dependent signal. It's a measure of deoxyhemoglobin concentration in the brain, which is an indirect measure of neural activity.


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Zizu58
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07 Nov 2016, 7:26 pm

melanieeee wrote:
What is the evidence that the brains of people with asperger's are 'wired' differently. I've heard it a lot but I am not really sure if I'm suppose to take it literally. Thanks.


I saw someone mentioned that their brain had a slow processor but I see mine as simply having a different OS ( operating system ) ....