A study done on individuals with autism that is published in the Journal of Neuroscience and summarized in yesterday’s Neuroscience News is fascinating. It shows that the pupils of individuals with autism dilate irregularly compared with those who do not have autism. This finding, in turn, points to a bigger piece of the autism puzzle.

The pupil dilation response is controlled by a part of the brain called the locus coeruleus, which is in turn a part of the reticular activating system in the pons of the brainstem.

Put more simply, the reticular activating system is in charge of what we pay attention to in our daily lives.  This example may help:  if you were to consider purchasing a blue Honda Accord, you would start noticing blue Hondas everywhere. That wouldn’t be because there were suddenly more blue Accords on the roads, but it would be because your reticular activating system was calling your brain’s attention to the ones that it sees.

This means that knowing how one part of the reticular activating system is dysregulated, we may have a glimpse into why those who have autism pay attention to their world differently than others, and why they may have  exaggerated responses to the world around them.  Let’s hope those researchers, who are from Carnegie Mellon, New York University, and the University of Pittsburgh, keep going and take this new insight to the next level.

You can access the Neuroscience News article here and the study itself here.