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  • Anatomy and Neurobiology of Autism
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Autism as a selective disorder of complex information processing and underdevelopment of neocortical systems

Molecular Psychiatry volume 7, pages S14–S15 (2002)Cite this article

Autism is now widely accepted as being a developmental neurobiologic disorder of polygenetic origin. The cause of autism is viewed as a cascade of events occurring across genetic, developmental neurobiologic, neural, cognitive and neurologic, and behavioral levels. One of the challenges is to connect findings at one level with those at the next level, which the studies to be described begin to accomplish.1

Until recently, neurobiologic research in autism focused exclusively on identifying its cognitive and neural basis. For two decades, this research was based on the premise that there was a single underlying cognitive deficit and studies were designed to examine a single cognitive domain. By the mid-1990s, it was apparent from this research that there were multiple cognitive deficits and that these involved information processing rather than information acquisition. A few studies then examined the profile of neuropsychologic functioning in autism. The underlying neurologic principle of these studies was that brain dysfunction results in a constellation of signs and symptoms and the pattern or common denominator of this constellation provides a major clue to the brain region(s) responsible in addition to explaining why the constellation of symptoms occurs as a syndrome. The largest and most comprehensive such study administered a comprehensive battery covering the major cognitive domains to 33 individually matched pairs of autistic subjects and normal control volunteers.2 Discriminant function analyses were performed domain by domain. No significant group differences were found in attention, sensory perception, elementary motor movements, memory for simple information, the rule learning aspects of abstract reasoning or visuospatial abilities; formal language was significantly better in the autism group than the control group. Deficits were found in complex motor movements, memory for complex material, the interpretative aspects of language, and concept formation. The most obvious implications of these findings were that information acquisition was intact and the visuospatial system was spared. Both intact and deficient abilities were present in the motor, memory, language and abstract reasoning domains. Within each of these domains, the deficits selectively involved the highest order abilities, while more basic abilities were spared or enhanced. The common denominator of the deficits was that they involved functions within each domain that had the highest information processing demands. Even though any language ability could be viewed as more complex than any motor ability, complex information processing was defined within each domain separately, respecting the organization of the brain into separate neural systems. High demands on information processing in general and complex information processing in particular provided an explanation for the constellation and predominance of deficits in social, language, and reasoning abilities. The motor impairment identified in this study has since been found to be a universal part of this syndrome.

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Notes

  1. The co-occurrence of mental retardation and autism far exceeds chance association of two low incidence disorders and studies have shown that mental retardation in families with an autistic member is always associated with autism and does not occur independently.

References

  1. Minshew NJ . J Autism Devel Dis 1996 26: 205–209

  2. Minshew NJ et al. J Int Neuropsychol Soc 1997 3: 303–316

  3. Minshew NJ et al. Neurology 1999 52: 917–922

  4. Luna B et al. Neurology (in press)

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Acknowledgements

Appreciation is expressed for the commitment of the participants and their families and their belief in the importance of research to improving the future for individuals with autism. This research was supported by NICHD grant HD 35469 and NINDS grant NS33355. This work and manuscript were supported in part by an NICHD Collaborative Program of Excellence in Autism (CPEA).

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  1. University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    N J Minshew & B Luna

  2. Department of Psychiatry (MC 912), University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    J Sweeney

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  1. N J Minshew
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  2. J Sweeney
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Correspondence to N J Minshew.

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Minshew, N., Sweeney, J. & Luna, B. Autism as a selective disorder of complex information processing and underdevelopment of neocortical systems. Mol Psychiatry 7 (Suppl 2), S14–S15 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4001166

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