Predictive impairment in autism: towards the emergence of phenotypes

Autism phenotypes are characterized by wide diversity across behavioral dimensions. It is unknown whether these traits or a subset of them share a causal neural mechanism. In adulthood, the complexity of atypical behaviors is in part the by-product of adaptation at the level of the neural circuitry in interaction with environment.

This makes the mapping of behavioral outcomes to neural mechanisms very challenging. Crucially, the underlying neural atypicalities emerge much earlier in infancy and then gradually unfold into different behaviors. By looking at this time window, we can characterize early atypical mechanisms at play prior to their evolution into more complex behaviors and before the environment influences their development.

Recent research has proposed a core process that is shared among autism phenotypes: an impairment in predictive skills in response to environmental stimuli, when the brain is continuously generating hypotheses about incoming sensory inputs. In this view, several behavioral dimensions of autism phenotypes may be manifestations of an underlying impairment in predictive abilities.

Motivated by these reports, I investigate whether the emergence of atypicalities in predictive mechanisms in neonates with a family history of autism guide later atypical behaviors. By using neuroimaging techniques and bringing theories from cognitive science and neuroscience together, I pursue two goals: 1) identifying neural mechanisms underlying early predictive abilities in neurotypical neonates, 2) investigating whether early deviations in these neural mechanisms can be detected in neonates with a high-genetic likelihood of later autism diagnosis, before they lead to later, more diverse behaviors.

To this end, I propose an experimental paradigm coupled with two neuroimaging modalities to investigate the neural correlates of early predictive abilities. This will provide dramatic new insights into the early typical and atypical mechanisms of brain development.