Brain signals may offer new insights into autism and decision-making

Baku, October 30, AZERTAC Autistic and non-autistic adults can perform equally well on a perceptual task while their brains respond differently to mistakes, assess decision difficulty and use recent experiences to guide future choices, according to an international study led by Israeli researchers. The findings could eventually help researchers better understand why autistic people differ in how they respond to feedback and changing circumstances, potentially informing more individualized approaches to support, TPS-IL reported. By identifying three distinct differences in how the brain evaluates mistakes, decision difficulty and recent experiences, the study offers new avenues for investigating the varied ways autism affects learning and decision-making.

Autism is a developmental condition that can affect social interaction, communication, behavior and sensory processing, with abilities and support needs varying widely among individuals. Autism’s exact causes remain unclear, but it is understood to arise from a complex combination of genetic factors and influences on early brain development. The study was led by Prof. Merav Ahissar of the Hebrew University’s Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences. Researchers identified three distinct differences in brain activity and decision-making, which they reproduced in a follow-up experiment one to two years later. “Our findings suggest that the differences associated with autism are not necessarily in the ability to perceive information accurately, but in how the brain evaluates experiences and uses them to guide future decisions,” Ahissar said. “We identified several distinct processes that may help us understand why adapting to rapidly changing situations can be more challenging for autistic individuals,” she…