Neural pruning?

Post Reply New Topic

Can someone please speak to the theory of "neural pruning" around ages 2, 8, and 13? (I believe that it was Zukenkerl that cited these numbers, but I haven't seen the study.) Is the theory that someone with autism doesn't prune enough of the unneeded neurons at these stages?

For some background, let me summarize my adolescence. It seems to have brought about a very dramatic personality shift. I went from a very shy, awkward boy with no friends my age to an outgoing, decently-liked youth with a small but close-knit group of friends. In many ways I feel like I "came out of my shell" and had a look around. In high school, I was amazed to discover that there were people out there who actually were willing to be my friend. That had either never happened before or I hadn't noticed.

Maybe this is just a normal part of growing up, but I'm not so sure. I know for many here, high school was an awful experience. While it wasn't wonderful for me, it was certainly tolerable, especially my last two years.

So how does this relate to neural pruning? Well, I wonder if an autistic person is able under some circumstances to have a more neurotypical prune around 13. If a person's sensory issues either greatly diminish or disappear completely in adolescence, could this be explained by such a prune? Could this also be the cause of some people thinking they have "grown out" of autistic behavior? Is this one of the reasons that it's difficult to diagnosis AS for an adult?

That is an interesting idea, but not sure how it would relate. Not entirely sure your brain will just randomly rewire itself, since in the case of one in the ASD classification, our brains are already wired differently. Bear in mind, how the condition affects someone is different from person to person. While my motor skills are good enough to allow driving, someone else may not and may never be able to. However, there are some cases of folks in the spectrum "growing out" of it. Whether or not that's what happened is also possible, or the "neural pruning" allowed it to happen. But im sure you still have some lingering displays of your condition: unable to read body language, facial expressions, etc. I also had a small tight-knit group of people i called friends, and at least one has been since 7th grade (currently 28 yrs old). However, I dont see/talk to them that often, like i distanced myself from them after graduating from High School. If your case is that of such, it would make for one hell of a research project.