Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Researchers reveal first brain study of Temple Grandin

Researchers reveal first brain study of Temple Grandin.

"Researchers at several institutions gave Grandin a slew of psychological tests and scanned her brain using several imaging technologies. She was 63 years old at the time of the scans.

Grandin’s brain volume is significantly larger than that of three neurotypical controls matched on age, sex and handedness. Some children with autism have abnormally large brains, though researchers are still working out how head and brain size changes across development.

Grandin’s lateral ventricles, the chambers that hold cerebrospinal fluid, are skewed in size so that the left one is much larger than the right. ‘It’s quite striking,’ Cooperrider says.

On both sides of her brain, Grandin has an abnormally large amygdala, a deep brain region that processes emotion. Her brain also shows differences in white matter, the bundles of nerve fibers that connect one region to another. The volume of white matter on the left side of her brain is higher than that in controls, the study found."

No comments: