According to research published in the May 15, 2008 issue of Biological Psychiatry, “individuals with autism who exhibit repetitive behavior show reduced activity in brain regions normally responsible for attention and executive function, the processes that help organize our actions and behaviors, researchers at Hofstra, Duke, and the University of North Carolina report in the current issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry.”
“During a test of cognitive flexibility in which participants were asked to alter behavioral responses and shift cognitive sets, individuals with autism showed impaired performance and decreased activation in several areas of the brain compared with typically-developing individuals,” said first author Keith Shafritz, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Hofstra University. “This pattern of reduced brain activity appeared in all participants in our autism group.”
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to determine the brain regions that were active during a taks that required perception and reasoning. The study had 18 individuals with autism and 15 without an autism diagnosis.
Source: Media Newswire