The Challenge of Visual Perception in Children with Autism
Researchers report that defects in inhibitory neurons within the visual cortex can impede the ability of autistic children to discern the direction in which small objects move. This finding was shared by the information service of the Russian News Foundation (RNF).
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects roughly 1 percent of children. While many autistic individuals do not have severe cognitive impairments, ASD is commonly linked to challenges in communication and social interaction. In addition, some children with ASD experience perceptual difficulties, such as trouble judging the direction of moving lines or identifying the trajectory of a moving object.
A team from Moscow State University of Psychology and Education sought to understand why visual information perception is altered in children with ASD. The study enrolled 42 boys and 37 typically developing children with no major developmental issues. Participants aged 7 to 15 were asked to indicate the direction of movement of a high-contrast grid displayed on a screen. All viewers completed the task for large visual stimuli, but several children with ASD had difficulty when the grid was smaller. In a follow-up experiment, children watched moving objects on the screen while researchers recorded brain activity with magnetoencephalography. In about 15–20 percent of the ASD group, the visual cortex showed a pattern where excitation outweighed inhibition. Those were the children who most frequently erred in determining the direction of motion for the small object in the first test.
The researchers propose that impairments in neural inhibition can lead to overstimulation of neurons, which can disrupt the function of motion detectors. These detectors, specific neurons that encode the direction and speed of moving lines, are crucial for forming a coherent visual image. When the background is large and easy to interpret, many factors can influence perception. Yet for a small moving object, the balance between inhibition and excitation in the visual cortex appears to matter most.
According to the authors, understanding these inhibition mechanisms could illuminate how ASD begins and progresses. This knowledge may eventually pave the way for targeted therapies or symptom management with medications, helping to regulate neural activity in the visual system and improve perceptual processing in daily life.
Note: some earlier remarks suggested unconventional approaches in related discussions; current research remains focused on neural inhibition and its role in visual processing in ASD (RNF press service reporting).