Brain Habit

During one of my classes for 1st year Bachelor in Psychology, a student told me that he was interested in behaviour, and he could not understand why he had to focus so much on the brain. To answer this question, I like to dive a bit into philosophy. Many philosophers, in fact, have dealt with the causes of behaviour. Their speculations can be divided into 3 main perspectives that have influenced the development of modern psychology: 🔴 Mentalism [e.g., Aristotle]: a person's mind (psyche) is a separate identity responsible for behaviour. This perspective has influenced modern behavioural science. 🔴 Dualism [e.g., Descartes]: behaviour is controlled by 2 entities, a mind and a body, that interact with each other. The mind receives information about the body and the world from the brain, and then it gives directives to the brain. 🔴 Materialism [e.g., Darwin]: behaviour can be measured objectively and consciousness is created in terms of physical properties of the brain. Man...

A main factor that contributes to variability of manifestations of Autism Spectrum Disorder in different people is the presence of comorbidities. Comorbidities are different conditions that may accompany autism, manifesting at the same time in the same person as overlapping conditions. These conditions may manifest at any time during the child’s development and play a fundamental role in clinical practice. This is because they can make differential diagnosis more difficult, and so affect timing of ASD diagnosis, they can mediate, moderate or even exacerbate symptoms of autism, and they can affect how therapies and interventions for ASD work. That’s why it is important to recognise and treat uncomfortable and undesired symptoms deriving from these conditions separately, with specific strategies tailored to the individual needs.  Over 70% of children with ASD show at least one comorbid condition, and 41% of them show two or more.  Among the different comorbidities, we can list: ...

Alterations in sensory processing have been added as a diagnostic criterion for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) relatively recently compared to those that are considered to be the core domains of autism: the presence of alterations in social communication and of restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviours and interests. Sensory processing is the term that describes how a person senses the outside world or his/her own body. This happens through different senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing, sense of the internal state of the body (interoception), sense of position or movement of our own body (proprioception), and sense of balance and spatial orientation (vestibular system). Sensory organs (like the eye) transform signals from the outside world (like light) into signals that can be read by the brain (electrochemical signals: action potentials), which then inform the brain about the outside world (for example you see objects around you). Do you know why some children with autism ...

One of my resolutions for this new year is to put a bigger effort into science outreach. That's why I decided to adjust my aims and changed the topic and format of this blog accordingly. I also started a new account on Instagram for sharing approachable science news, ideas and articles about brain, development and mental health. https://www.instagram.com/brainhabit/ The same topic will be covered in a blog post here at the end of the week, wrapping up on everything I shared during the week and citing references. For this first week of 2021, I decided to start with the main topic of my research, which is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). As a researcher in the autism field, I would like to help people know more about ASD, its origins, manifestation and development. It is a huge field of research, so you might understand that there is a lot to say. Here, I will introduce ASD starting from its diagnostic definition and will provide a quick overview of the current ideas in terms of possi...

In a world focused on how to handle this pandemic and just past the World Mental Health Day, I'd like to highlight the impact of the current situation on people who need mental health support, with a specific focus on autistic people because of my work as a researcher in the autism field. Europe counts over 6 million cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) with almost 232,000 related deaths. One of the greatest risks during this pandemic is the overwhelming and sustained demand for healthcare resources, which may exceed the capacity of healthcare systems, leading to unadequate help and increase of deaths. To reduce pressures on health and social care systems, almost all countries have implemented mitigation measures aimed at reducing transmission of the virus among people, including national lockdown policies that might be either very strict (like in Italy) or so-called smart (like in the Netherlands). These measures seem to have worked properly at reducing infection rates before t...