eli5: How are Autistic brains different from Neurotypcial brains?
In: Biology
This is still something we’re very much trying to figure out, but one recently developed theory that I’ve been told rings true to many of those I know on the spectrum is that it is in various ways an overdevelopment of the brain’s ability to focus or, especially, hyper focus. That is where things like special interests come from, but it also explains stimming and sensory aversions (stimming is more reinforcing because they’re experiencing the thing they like more intensely, aversion cause more dramatic reactions for the same reason in the other direction) and social differences (they are so hyper focused on the content of the conversation and processing their responses, they miss learning other more physical aspects of interacting naturally and have more trouble keeping those behaviors up while also holding the conversation). It also explains much of the classical things people with autism struggle with, like changing tasks or interruptions to schedules (being taken out of a highly focused state when you didn’t expect it and told you have to change can be really jarring).
It can express many different ways, and it depends a lot on the individual how and how strongly that focus overdevelopment manifests, but when you listen to people with autism about their internal experience, I find it makes a lot of sense when understood through that lens.
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