In the Daily Californian, 2 years ago
Headline: O body, where art thou?
My hands repeatedly go up to my face, down to the arms of the chair and then back to my lap. My leg and my body keep making small movements. The girl sitting next to me in the lecture hall looks askance at me several times because I appear to be constantly fidgeting.
The lecture begins, and the picture of the somatosensory map in the brain flashes on the screen, followed by other neuroscience concepts such as mirror neurons. My brain, ears and eyes all perk up in interest.
Even as I am sitting there listening to the lecture, my mind is busily trying to extrapolate the lecture material to what is currently known about the neuroscience of autism and how it plays out in my life every day, since I am an individual with autism.
I am especially intrigued by the body map that the brain forms of the different parts of the body in space and time. My mind tries to pull in strings of thought and form a web of understanding as I ponder whether this body map underlies many of the challenges we autistics face. By linking the neuroscience of autism with observations of my functioning, I am better able to understand my everyday challenges.
You see, for a subset of autistics like me, the brain is not able to form a proper map or body schematic. I can at times feel like parts of my body are missing and that I am not grounded.
My body adapts through movement. For example, the brain asks the hand where it is, and a connection is formed when the hand moves. The brain is now able to map the hand in its body schematic. But these connections are temporary, which means that if I sit absolutely still for too long in the lecture hall, I may just fall asleep. What other students see are the constant impulsive body movements.
I also tend to rely on vision a lot to help me know where my body is. When I see my leg, my brain registers its presence in my body map. I don’t like to close my eyes during the day because I may lose track of my body.
For my brain, it’s like looking at a fun house mirror that gives a very different image of you every time you look into it. The image in the mirror is what you are and not who you think you are.
I tend to use the presence of people around me to help keep my body space organized and keep me grounded. I would feel lost and helpless in a large room with no people. Touching someone or someone touching me even very lightly can help my body parts feel connected to each other and makes me feel grounded.
I think about the slide on mirror neurons from lecture. Mirror neurons in the brain activate when you see another person perform an action — it’s almost like you yourself were performing that action. Mirror neurons are thought to be linked to perception, language ability and even empathy.
Many professionals believe that there is a delay in the formation of mirror neurons in autistics like me. I wonder if that is because of my imperfect body map, since I am not able to repeat the same neural pathways as many times as non-autistics can.
I try to pull in more strings of neuroscience, such as apraxia, into this body map puzzle that I am pondering. Apraxia is the difficulty with complex purposeful movements needed for everyday life, such as speech. It is possible that my imperfect body schema contributes to the apraxias that I and many other autistics face.
I attempt to straighten out a string that’s been hanging loose on my web of understanding. It’s a catch-22 when you factor in sensory input from the environment. I believe that my sensory input from the environment has to be uniform to form a good body schematic. At the same time, I need to have a good body schematic to interact well with the environment. But I don’t have a good body map, so the sensory environment can be overwhelming and intense for me at times.
I leave my lecture that day feeling very contemplative as I walk down Oppenheimer Way. My web of understanding still feels somewhat incomplete. While I am excited at all the progress that has been made in understanding the neuroscience of autism, I can only hope that solutions will also follow soon — ones that will help us autistics have a better life.
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