Autism and the Salience Network, and topics to prepare for a future episode about Sex-and-Diagnosis Differences and the Nucleus Accumbens (NAc)

From the Spectrum: Finding Superpowers with Autism by Ryan Sumner

Episode notes

We expand on a critical network discussed in the Autism and Adaptive Responses episode. The biology that gives us Autism, gives us a condition the outside world is chaotic. The trade off is our inner world is comfortable. See criteria B.3.

The Salience Network is used to determine what we send our attention to as we orient ourselves with the outside world. You can see this in Autism versus Non-Autism. Autistics orient to single objects or single interests more than multiple objects or interests. That's Criteria B of Autism- Restricted, Repetitive Interests, Behaviors, or Activities.

In Autism, the Salience Network connects to different regions compared to Non-Autism, and this is shown at Six-Weeks-Old. And, this implicates our Social Attention and Social Motivation. Remember Hans Aspergers called the children "little professors" bec ... 

 ...  Read more
Keywords
Autism and Salience Network, Nucleus Accumbens, Sex Differences