Autism

Autism is a fatal disease which makes no mark on the outward physical appearance of a child

who looks normal but when someone tries to talk to the child he usually avoids eye contact, if

insisted he starts rocking his whole body and yells sentences which have little or no meaning.

Autism comes from 'autis' a Greek word meaning 'self' which squarely fits the features of this

disease. Children suffering from Autism have no empathy for others, absolutely withdrawn from

their surroundings yet they feel normal emotions like pleasure, fear and rage. Till now scientists

have just come to know that this disease is usually inherited.

After 1990's a new discovery of nerve cells were made and these brain cells are called mirror

neurons. These cells are involved in abilities such as empathy so it is perceived that any

dysfunction of these mirror cells could also be the cause of autism.

Symptoms

Losses of empathy, difficulty in speaking, reduced imitation among others are also the symptoms

that show that mirror neurons were dysfunctional. Due to different nature of symptoms theorists

have proposed to divide autism into two groups, anatomical and psychological. Besides

abnormalities of the cerebellum which coordinates highly complex voluntary muscle movements

is also a cause. There is another theory called ‘theory of other minds' but it is not a viable theory

as it does not be carried far beyond restarting autism symptoms.

Human brain’s frontal lobe helps control voluntary movements. Brain imaging techniques

revealed that the human cortex also contain mirror neurons they send commands and are

involved in sending commands to simulate imitation it is the reason that when a baby is shown

tongue, the infant tries to imitate the same.

Mu Waves suppression

EEG of a child revealed that it has a visible mu wave which looked suppressed as he made some

movement but once this child looked at some other fellow perfrom the same action this

suppression did not occur. This proves that the child has an intact motor command system, but

the deficiency lies in the mirror neurons.More than 60 years ago German-American psychologist

Wolfgang Köhler discovered through his famous bouba/kiki effect abstract properties of shapes

and sound can be fathomed by the brain. The angular gyrus, lying in brain, is responsible for

hearing and feeling of touch.

Can the mirror neurons be repaired?

Mirror neurons deficiency in autism patients can be used as a diagnostic tool in identifying

children with autism in their early infancy and hence apply this knowledge with the help of

available therapies. Doctors could also monitor mu waves of a child with autism. If MDMA or

ecstasy can foster emotional closeness then based on the formulation modifications can be made

to the compound to develop safe treatment to alleviate some symptoms of autism.William

Hirstein of Elmhurst College and Portia Iversen of Cure Autism have developed what the

salience landscape theory. When human brain is overwhelmed with different information these

are then processed by the brain's sensory area and relayed to amygdala which determines how to

respond to these information. Amygdala creates a salience landscape which reveals the

significance of everything in the patient’s environs. But in autism children this landscape is

distorted, so a child with autism is unable to focus on something like normal kids.

One of the reasons for distorted salience landscape is that autism children have had temporal

lobe epilepsy anytime during their infancy. The reason for such epilepsy during infancy is both

genetic and environmental.There is a possibility that for describing autism’s two symptoms, the

mirror neuron dysfunction and distorted salience landscape.The distorted links between limbic

system and brain might be responsible for damaging the mirror neurons. But further experiments

are required to put these conjectures into test.

Critique

This paper is a critique of a research paper written by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Lindsay

M. Oberman (2008) titled: Broken Mirror, A theory of autism-studies of the mirror neuron

system to help scientists to develop and apply therapies to treat autism. The authors have done a

research study to examine the results of autism on children behaviors.

Problem

This research is an experimental study designed to assess the cause as well as the effectiveness of

the treatment of autism in children. The problem is clearly stated and is researchable and its

major significance is stated in the study. The problem statement includes the variables and

recommends a positive correlation between Mu Waves suppression or broken neurons and

distorted salience landscape.

Review of Literature

Autism is a fatal disease it makes no mark on the outward physical appearance of a child but

when someone tries to talk to the child he usually avoids eye contact, utters sentences which are

not easily comprehensible and rocks his body. Children suffering from Autism have no empathy

for others but they feel normal emotions like pleasure fear and rage. Till now scientists have just

come to know that this disease is usually inherited. The authors cite previous research, to justify

the contents of their research. Some nerve cells in the brain are called mirror neurons which are

involved in abilities such as empathy so it is perceived that any dysfunction of these mirror cells

could also be the cause of autism. Human brain is able to extract abstract properties from shapes

and sounds. When human brain is overwhelmed with different information these are then

processed by the brain's sensory area and relayed to amygdala which determines how to respond

to these information and creates a salience. But in case of autism patients this salience landscape

is distorted this can be due to temporal lobe epilepsy in infancy. Although the two symptoms of

autism, mirror neuron dysfunction and distorted salience landscape do not contradict each other,

but more research is needed to prove this.

Conclusion

The results are presented clearly and specifically address each question. But every hypothesis

was not tested. Appropriate descriptive statistics are presented and described in the text. The

authors set and specify the probability value before addressing the results of the study. The

authors recommend future research based on their statistical as well as practical findings. Much

has to be done to understand autism, modern science with all its might and power still looks

perplexed in this context and this has also been accepted by the authors.