Al leer el siguiente párrafo me surgió la inquietud de si no será que nosotros mismos estamos multiplicando el número de individuos con autismo al exponerlos forzada y tempranamente a un proceso educativo formal en que aceleramos su desarrollo cognitivo al límite de lo posible a través de la estimulación sensorial e intelectual. > The sensitivity to the environment (in early developmental stages) could drive the brain to develop in a premature sequence and in a manner that enhances functionality. At its peak, the environment could become excessively intense and set in motion a systematic regression to where the brain is forced to take refuge in a highly specialized “cocoon” where extremes and surprises are actively avoided and blocked out. Más adelante, los autores señalan que: > The approximately million neocortical columns in humans each need to be precisely excited and inhibited to coordinate higher brain functions and complex behavior. Excessive intra-columnar processing, particularly during development, could enhance the most elementary sensory, motor, and cognitive processes at the expense of being able to orchestrate “symphonies” of higher cognitive functions.. With excessive learning and memory processes, sensory regions could consolidate into overspecialized modules and lead to hyper-preference processing. During early development, this may lead to excessive flow of information from sensory areas to the higher integration areas such as the association cortices and prefrontal lobe which may cause prematurely accelerated growth of these higher order brain areas, as indeed observed in autism. Como las columnas se especializan demasiado pronto formando "módulos aislados" de trabajo, les resultaría más difícil procesar los estímulos del medio de manera holística. La neocorteza quedaría fragmentada así en módulos que son difíciles de controlar y coordinar. O al menos eso entiendo a partir de este párrafo: > Deficits in higher brain functions such as executive control and holistic processing may also be better explained by overly autonomous elementary modules rather than deficits in these areas or weak long-range connectivity. En particular, esta afirmación que se encuentra al final del artículo me conduce a pensar que, a la luz de este modelo explicativo, mi hipótesis podría tener algo de valor. > The hopeful insight offered by the Intense World Theory is that the right treatment strategies of cocooning the autistic infant to protect from surprising situations, and dampening brain functioning in early development to prevent driving the brains circuits into an irreversible trajectory, may reveal truly capable and highly gifted individuals who can integrate with their social environment successfully %% [[Markram.Markram2010]] %% #Rev/2602 #Tipo/Reflexión