Brain Habit

Social communication and interaction are essential to the human condition; some individuals present, however, with profound alterations in these capacities. The most striking example thereof is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), considered to be among the most severe neurodevelopmental disorders in terms of prevalence, morbidity and impact on society. The first description of autism can be traced to 1943, when Leo Kanner (Kanner, 1968) and Hans Asperger used described behaviours that they separately observed in children, like social withdrawal, desire for sameness, communication/language impairment, stereotyped motor behaviours, and intellectual disability with onset from the first year of life, but also the expression of exceptional isolated talents and conserved linguistic abilities. Early infantile autism has been included in the diagnostic manual DSM-III in 1980, to be later covered by PDD (pervasive developmental disorder) in the DSM-IV (1994), changed into the current u...