EXCESSIVE INHIBITORY SYNAPTIC STRENGTHS - A NEURONAL PROPERTY THEORY OF AUTISM
It is shown that excessive inhibitory synaptic strengths will cause sensory
response characteristics often found in autistic individuals. From the
theory of self-organizing maps with Hebbian learning, a mathematical model
of cortical areas, it furthermore follows that excessive inhibitory synaptic
strengths will impair the development of cortical maps, necessary for
feature recognition and efficient information processing and storage of
salient information in memory. This can explain Hermelin's experimental
finding that autistic individuals perform less recoding from sensory input
to more abstract codes. It is also argued to be in agreement with Frith's
theory of lack of drive for central coherence in autistic individuals.
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