Comments on: Brain Camp Review – Von Economo Neurons

By: Robin P Clarke

Robin P Clarke — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:22:11 +0000

Craig, In your reply to Karen Dahn I wonder if you underrate the case for von Economo too much. Especially this sentence seems over the top:
“The article was mostly speculation, arguing that there may be a link for two reasons.”

Allman et al 2005 gave four citations in respect of the direct links to autism alone. They tied together a whole lot more dots into a coherent conception.

The question of whether there are reduced VENS in autistic FI is not crucial to the confirmation of their thesis. They could be there but dysfunctioning, and they presented evidence suggestive of that.

I don’t have enough close expertise to say with confidence that the case is a decisive yes, but it looks to me something that can’t reasonably be rated as mostly speculation. My own sensing (my von Economoes I guess) is that they are most probably on to something here. Lots of sound ideas in history have been held back with the S-word for too long.

By: karen dahn

karen dahn — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:08:06 +0000

I am interested in how VENS affect autism. How are they different than mirror neurons? Do autistic people have fewer VENS or are they somehow different or flawed? What about inflammation? Any ways of helping the autistic person function better? Any meds or therapies? I would appreciate any insights.

Right now there is a lot of uncertainty regarding whether Von Economo neurons play a role in Autism. Allman et al. (2005) argued that there was a link between VENS and the social dysfunction observed in Autism. The article was mostly speculation, arguing that there may be a link for two reasons. First, VENS mature late in development relative to other cell types, roughly in step with traits of Autism that emerge during the first few years of life. Second, children with Autism are known to have structural and functional deficits in the anterior cingulate and fronto-insular cortex. These are the two regions of the brain where the greatest number of VENS are found. While these associations are intriguing, the Allman paper did not have much in the way of data to back up their hypotheses.

Kennedy et al. (2007) conducted an experiment to explicitly examine the number of VENS in the fronto-insular cortex of individuals with Autism. Their results speak against the VENS hypothesis of Autism, as an equivalent number of neurons were found between Autistics and normal controls. This does not mean that the neurons were functioning in an equivalent manner, but does show that the cells are present and accounted for in fronto-insular cortex.

Unfortunately a great deal more research is necessary before any medications or therapies can potentially be generated. We don’t even have a good grasp of how VENS function normally, let alone how to characterize their dysfunction in clinical disorders. There is an army of scientists working on the problem, but it is time-consuming, painstaking work. This is frustrating for us as researchers and doubly frustrating for the loved ones of Autistic individuals. Still, work is progressing – one day we may yet beat Autism. ~ Craig [Prefrontal]

By: Joe Erwin

Joe Erwin — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:55:42 +0000

Larry, your point is a good one. First, these neurons were thought to exist exclusively in humans. When Patrick Hof and Esther Nimchinsky found them in the in all the great apes, they reported having checked about 30 primate and 30 nonprimate mammal species without finding them (see Nimchinsky et al. PNAS, 1999). But eventually Hof and colleagues checked cetaceans, and found VENs in toothed but not baleen whales. Hof’s group and Allman’s group checked elephants, Asian and African, respectively, and found VENs in them. Much remains to be done, no doubt. All this is a lesson of some sort in scientific epistemology….

By: Larry Leach

Larry Leach — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:49:31 +0000

This is interesting but how extensively have mammalian species been investigated to rule out their existence? Have they compared social vs. non-social species?