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Markram & Markram in Switzerland made “autistic” rats and then studied the heck out of their nervous systems. They observed what they call “hyper-functioning autonomous microcircuits,” which are tiny sections of neurons less than 50 microns wide that go on “runaway information processing.” When stimulated, the reactions of their neurons are amplified. The researchers observed hyper-reactivity, hyper-plasticity (more rewiring of new connections after learning even outside the microcircuits), hyper-learning, and hyper-fear. They tied these observations in “autistic rats” to documented observations in autistic humans of hyper-perception, hyper-attention, hyper-memory, and hyper-emotionality. They proposed the “Intense World Theory” to explain observations of hyper-functioning neural connectivity in autism.
Traditionally, autism has been defined by social “deficits.” I love the Intense World model, together with the Monotropism model, because this describes how it feels from the INSIDE. So many more autistic people can relate to living in an intense, attention-concentrated world, than can relate to being defined as impaired.
References:
Markram, K. and Markram, H. (2010). The Intense World Theory – a unifying theory of the neurobiology of autism. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 4: 5-29. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2010.00224
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