Is it Possible to Have too Much Conscious? : Autism as an Overabundance of Consciousness

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a partially hereditary developmental disorder with a wide spectrum of symptoms related to an inability to engage in social interactions and repetitive behaviors. According to the Center for Disease Control, autism affects 1 in every 68 children in the U.S. Because autism spectrum disorder cases have and are becoming more and more prevalent, public and academic interest has led to some amazing progress such as the development of early intervention therapies and the discovery that certain genetic factors seem to be implicated in its progression. However, as with most mental disorders, there are no concrete theories on exactly how ASD develops, a task which is especially difficult considering the wide range of symptoms that characterize the disorder at its various levels.  

In his book The Ravenous Brain Daniel Bor highlights his own theory about what causes ASD. He describes the disorder as the result of an overabundance of consciousness. Consciousness in this case meaning roughly the way we attend to and organize the world around us. Bor states that although the traditional view is that autism arises from an ineptitude for social interaction, this social inability instead arises from the overabundance of information that results from heightened attention found in children with ASD. Because of this overwhelming sensory experience, children with autism tend to avoid social interactions which are described as more chaotic and unpredictable in favor of more predictable and structured pursuits. In other words, according to Bor the social difficulties associated with ASD arise from increased focus and not the other way around.   

            There is a fair amount of evidence supporting this view including the fact that many people with ASD have higher than average IQs and occasionally develop incredible visual, musical or mathematical talents. Furthermore, one of the hallmarks of autism is an overgrowth of the brain during childhood including an increased number of neurons in the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain linked with both logical reasoning and social function (though this overgrowth is lost by adulthood). In addition, people with autism are thought to have an increased level of glutamate (the neurotransmitter that generally makes neurons fire) and a lack of GABA (the neurotransmitter that generally stops neurons from firing), suggesting that that people with ASD have “overactive” brains.

            However, this theory doesn’t account for those savants who don’t have signs of autism and yet, in order to accomplish these feats, would also require an overbearing amount of consciousness. Consider for example, so called “human calculators” like Shakuntala Devi or Scott Flansburg who have incredible mathematical ability but no real social impairment. The same could be said for others who have rare memory abilities.

I recently came across an article in Scientific American that highlights a study by Eric Courchesne and his colleagues at the University of California San Diego that sheds some light on how ASD may develop. The small study compared brains sections from 11 children who were affected by ASD aged 2 to 15 with a control group of 11 corresponding brain sections from children who died without ASD. Using a complicated imaging technique, they were able to discern how active a set of 25 different genes associated with autism were in the obtained brain sections. What they found were small patches of less gene activity in 10 out of 11 ASD affected brains throughout the superior frontal gyrus of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and posterior superior temporal cortex, two areas of the brain that have to do with social and emotional communication. 

            These patches were not the result of a lack of neurons (in fact there is evidence to suggest that there are more neurons in these patches). Instead, they are areas where the neurons are disordered and out of place. Curiously, a third brain section having to do with vision was also studied but showed no evidence of the patches. Although patches were found only in select areas, they were distributed randomly in those areas and are thought to arise from a dysregulation of how the brain develops, which could explain the variability of symptoms in ASD.

This study shows that there is at the very least something abnormal about these patches found in areas associated with social interaction. The patches may disrupt the flow of information to and from affected areas and lead to some of the symptoms associated with ASD. If this abnormality leads to at least an initial difficulty in learning how to read social behavior then it would slightly unhinge Bor’s idea that the social inability associated with autism is a result of having too much consciousness as opposed to being an innate feature of the disorder. It is easy to see how a child left unable to process social cues would find social interaction incredibly confusing and frightening regardless of how stimulating the experience is. There would be no way of telling if a parent was angry or happy, no difference between a hug and a forceful grab of the arm.

Keep in mind though, that these patches of disordered neurons are not necessarily the definitive cause of autism either. One of the brain segments that came from a child with ASD had no signs of the patches, while one set of segments from a child without the disorder had the patches albeit to a smaller degree. It is more likely that ASD has a mixture of causes that differ from person to person all leading to the same set types of symptoms. 

There are many genetic and environmental factors that have been shown to contribute to ASD but none of them are completely universal. Perhaps ASD in some people is caused by something like Bor’s “supercharged consciousness” while others are caused by patches of cells with inactive genes, others still by an overabundance of glutamate or a combination of these and other potential causes.

 I don’t mean to paint a hopeless picture for people with autism. I agree with Bor that early intervention treatment programs like the Early Start Denver Model are amazing advancements in treatment, but just because social difficulties can be overcome doesn’t mean that they aren’t heavily rooted in the disorder in the first place. The brain is a marvelously adaptive thing (especially a child’s) and it wouldn’t be too surprising to find that early intervention programs help children find their way around any initial physiological challenges.

It will be hard to find a single cause for a complex disorder like ASD as long as it is defined by a loose set of symptoms that can have multiple causes. Even though the system of classifying disorders as being caused by varying degrees of consciousness outlined in The Ravenous Brain is an interesting and novel approach, the idea that an all-encompassing magic bullet theory will describe every case of a disorder seems unlikely. To take a page out of Bor’s book (literally), if your computer can crash for a number of reasons, it follows that a mental disorder’s symptoms can also arise for a number of reasons, especially since the human brain is far more complex than a laptop.

References:

Boyle, M. P., Chow, L. M., Colamarino, S. A., Courchesne, E., Lein, E. S., Mouton, P. R., Roy, S., Sunkin, M.S., Stoner, R., & Wynshaw-Boris, A.  (2014). Patches of Disorganization in the Neocortex of Children with Autism. The New England Journal of Medicine, 370, 1209-1219

Laidman, J. (2014, August 14). Disorganized Brain Cells Help Explain Autism Symptoms. Scientific American. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/disorganized-brain-cells-help-explain-autism-symptoms/

(2014, March 24). Autism Spectrum Disorder Data & Statistics. Retrieved From http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html