Simon Baron-Cohen: a very particular autism researcher

Cognitive neuroscientist, Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen was born on August 15, 1958. He is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, in the departments of Experimental Psychology and Psychiatry. He is one of the best-known autism researchers, but also one of the most controversial, due to his “eccentric” ideas, as he calls them.

“The lone wolf of autism research”, “creative rebel”, “hero of scientific dissemination”, “red rag for feminists”. Too many labels for a specialist who, although he may be considered too daring, does not stop trying to provide relevant data to help understand the spectrum.

Simon Baron-Cohen: research on mental blindness and hypermasculinization

Autistic people often see a lot, but recognize little. Many of them have great difficulties in classifying what they see in a spatial/temporal/social context. In the mid-1980s, Baron-Cohen attempted to explain this phenomenon with his theory of “mind blindness.”

Unlike typically developed people, according to him, those diagnosed as autistic have problems reading the desires and intentions of others from their facial expressions and gestures.

One of the experiments to demonstrate the theory of mind

Baron-Cohen and Uta Frith recruited 4-year-old children with autism for a study to obtain evidence to support their hypothesis. They showed the little ones a scenario that involved two dolls. In it, one of the dolls placed a marble in her basket and left the scene.

After exiting, the second doll moves the marble to its own basket. The researchers then ask the children where the first doll will look for her marble when she returns. Children with typical development and those with Down syndrome realize that the first doll does not know what has happened in her absence. On the other hand, a good part of children with autism affirm that the first doll will go look for the marble in the second doll’s basket.

Researchers allege that the brain connections that process emotions and language in autistic children show less activity, contrary to the areas that process objects.

Brain scan analysis

Furthermore, a whole series of researchers around the world scanned the brains of healthy and autistic test subjects, as they must match angry and friendly glances with corresponding emotions, identify voices of acquaintances, or describe the intentions of certain characters in stories.

Autistic people often show less activity in brain regions responsible for processing emotions and language, recognize faces or evoke memories. The connections between these areas, it is assumed, are weaker in them. Instead, there is often more activity where objects are processed.

In 2003, Baron-Cohen presented the controversial thesis that autism is an extreme variant of the male brain.

That “something,” Baron-Cohen surmises, is the hormone testosterone. This fact is because male fetuses produce twice as much testosterone as women in the womb and prenatal testosterone influences brain development.

When measuring the level of testosterone in women who were due to undergo amniocentesis and their children were examined after birth, the higher the level of prenatal testosterone, the more autistic traits the children showed and the more interested they were in the systems.

However, many in the field of autism studies are skeptical of this hypothesis. “It is not clear whether the theory predicts that fetal testosterone is sufficient to cause autism or whether fetal testosterone levels interact with other markers of genetic vulnerability,” says David Skuse, professor of behavioral and brain sciences at University College London. .

Most of the analyzes conducted by Baron-Cohen’s group are based on mothers’ perceptions of their children’s behavior and not objective measures, Skuse adds.

Synesthesia and autism

Synesthesia is another area of ​​exploration that Baron-Cohen is involved with. Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which a sensation in one modality triggers a perception in another modality. He and his colleagues are the first to prove the existence of synesthesia using neuroimaging. In addition to this, Baron-Cohen holds the position of co-editor-in-chief of the journal Molecular Autism.

Your idea of ​​autism

Baqron-Cohen is quick to dismiss the idea that autism is a mental illness; claims that it is both a disability and a difference.

Disability is related to social functioning and adaptation to change. According to the specialist, the child is processing information in an intelligent, although different, way, with attention to details and the ability to detect patterns. Compare the way autism is viewed today to the way being left-handed was once viewed.

Baron-Cohen opposes the idea that autism and Asperger syndrome should be merged under the same diagnosis and argues that the latter should continue as a distinct diagnostic entity. He doesn’t think there are enough studies comparing Asperger syndrome to other types of autism to be able to say there is no difference.

Baron-Cohen’s current research seeks to relate the professional character of parents to the likelihood of having a child on the autism spectrum.

Current Studies by Simon Baron-Cohen

The scientist does not miss the opportunity to gain Psychology Today readers to also become subjects of an online study. All mothers and fathers who have a college degree are asked to go to the website www.cambridgepsychology.com and enter a few simple questions about their child’s development.

Then, By compiling enough data, we examine whether there is an association between the parents’ field of study and the likelihood of having a child with autism. Baron-Cohen suspects that graduates in systems and the inanimate world, such as mathematics, engineering or computer science, are at greater risk than others for autism.

Furthermore, the fact that more women now work in technical and mathematical professions and find similar partners in the workplace could possibly explain the dramatic increase in autism spectrum diagnoses, that is, autism and Asperger’s syndrome in children.

It’s a bold theory. But Baron-Cohen has never shied away from posing unusual hypotheses. Time and research will prove you right or wrong.

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