Professor Mirella Dapretto and colleagues studied the brain activity in children's with autism and found that they had less brain activity compared to normal children. The Researchers found that the autism children's had less activity in Mirron neurons, which is responsible for observation and imitating others action and expressing facial response. The researchers have published their study in the Journal Nature Neuroscience.
Autism is a developmental disorder that typically develops during the first three years of life it affects the ability to communicate with others and repond to them appropriately. Autistic children do not reach on time the developmental milestones of a normal healthy baby, like crawling, walking, saying the first word etc. Autistic children's have reduced activity in the insula and the amygdala part of the brain which is responsible for emotion.Dr Dapretto compared the brain activity of autistic children's with normal children and found that they lack facial gestures and had a lower brain activity in mirron neurons, the inferior frontal gyrus pars opercularis which is responsible for observation and imitating other's action.
