The ‘mirror neurons’ of well-functioning autism
When someone waves to them, our brain is capable of processing the gesture as something friendly and allows us to imitate. This is possible thanks to the mirror neuron system, a set of nerve cells, to date, it was thought that could go wrong in autistic spectrum disorders. However, a study published in ‘Neuron’ indicates that their normal activity in these patients.
The theory made sense. One of the most striking features of people with autism is their inability to imitation, empathy and understanding of the intent of the gestures of others. If mirror neurons are crucial for social interaction, it was logical to think that something is wrong with this brain system. In fact, some studies appeared to confirm the hypothesis.
But these works were overlooked something important. “No evaluated the selectivity of cortical activity in areas of particular movements mirror system,” says principal investigator, Ilan Dinstein, Department of Psychiatry at the University of New York (USA). This selectivity of movement is not simply the distinction that our brain makes every gesture, by storing a single neuronal response.
That is, when we see someone with a closed fist with the thumb pointed up a number of activated neurons, other than one which is ‘light’ when the thumb is down. The same happens when you run a gesture. This allows an accurate perception and interpretation of the observed motions. With repetition, moreover, these subpopulations engaged in selective adjusting movement.
According to the mirror system hypothesis, people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have weaker responses in these neurons and reduced adaptation. However, Dinstein and his colleagues reasoned that if the studies with monkeys have not provided evidence of a causal relationship between the mirror system and the ability of primates to understand the meaning of a particular movement, it is possible that in humans is similarly.
So a new experiment designed to determine the activity of mirror neurons in people with ASD and concluded that its adaptation to the observation or repeated execution of a gesture, in this case the hand was normal. This finding suggests that the difficulty that these individuals have to communicate socially is not due to a malfunction of this system.
“Our research focused on a key aspect of motion perception that previous studies had overlooked, the ability of neuronal populations from areas of the mirror system to distinguish different movements of his hand,” explains Dinstein. “The finding that these groups and normal cells respond selectively to a particular gesture discusses the existence of cerebral dysfunction in this system,” he adds.
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Posted in Autism | 
Tags: Autism, autistic spectrum disorders, brain system, hypothesis, Neuron, patients