What is the major deficit of autistic brain?
Both post-mortem and neuroimaging studies indicate the presence of increased brain volume, cerebral hypo-perfusion, inflammation, oxidative stress, immune dysregulation, relative mitochondrial dysfunction, neurotransmitter abnormalities, and impaired detoxification. Among which, hypo-perfusion and chronic inflammation are considered to be two major pathophysiologic changes in autistic brain. These impairments are likely to be a consequence of abnormal pre- and post-natal development of a distributed neural network, affecting multiple brain regions which are related to functional disturbance and “disconnectivity”.
