Research: Failure to Deactivate in Autism: The Co-Constitution of Self and Other

This theoretical review article discusses several neuroimaging experiments showing that autistic individuals have unusual patterns of activity in several brain areas that process social information.

In a non-autistic person, a group of brain areas is normally active unless the individual is asked to do particular kinds of cognitive tasks. Research on these parts of the brain show that they are responsible for both thoughts about oneself as well as thoughts about other people and social situations. When doing these tasks, the non-autistic person has lower activity in these areas. The idea is that when nothing is demanded of us, we tend to focus on ourselves and social cues, but when we are asked to think about something, we shut down these areas somewhat. Interestingly, in people with autism, these areas are active even when they are performing thinking tasks. This suggests to some researchers that these brain areas are not effectively processing self-thoughts and social information when the person with autism is resting. The author summarizes other research that supports this idea, and emphasizes the need for further research on the interdependent processing of thoughts about self and other in people with autism.