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Talk talk talk…..it may make a difference to your infant

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Children and infants who later go on to have an autism diagnosis show impairments in communication. Is there anything that parents can do? Yes! Talk. Talk in complicated sentences. Talk responsively and keep it up. This isn’t always an inherent skill, it’s learned, and in this podcast we talk about the biological basis of why infants with ASD are more sensitive to verbal input, how hyposensory features are involved and what you can do to improve your verbal responsiveness that needs to be different for your child with ASD

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34128355/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34185234/

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Gamma waves and autism brains

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Gamma waves are brainwave activity at a certain speed and have been linked to consciousness and seem to help coordinate activity in different parts of the brain.  They have also been associated with processing of information, including sensory information.  This week, researchers at Oxford University led by Dr. David Menassa explore gamma waves in the brains of autistic adults who perform better on a visual processing task than those without a diagnosis.  Gamma waves are controlled by the coordinated activity of neurons in the brain, which are regulated by inhibitory interneurons which make sure excitatory neurons aren’t taking over.  In a study using brain tissue of people with autism, it was found by another study at Oxford that there are fewer of these inhibitory interneurons to control this activity.  Dr. David Menassa provides his own interpretation of the data on this week’s podcast.