Autistic brain controls moving differently

U.S researchers found that children with autism rely more heavily on a region of the brain responsible for conscious effortful movement.

Researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute said that typically developing peers utilized a region of the brain important for automating motor tasks.

Dr. Stewart H. Mostofsky, the study’s senior author, said children with autism also showed less connectivity between different regions of the brain involved in coordinating and executing movement, supporting the theory that a decreased ability of distant regions of the brain to communicate with each other forms the neurological basis of autism.

Researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging scans to examine the brain activity of 13 children with high functioning autism and 13 typically developing children while performing sequential finger tapping.

The typically developing children had increased activity in the cerebellum, a region of the brain important for automating motor tasks, while children with autism had increased activity in the supplementary motor area, a region of the brain important for conscious movement.

The finding, published online in the journal Brain, suggests children with autism have to recruit and rely on more conscious, effortful motor planning because they are not able to rely on the cerebellum to automate tasks.