Previously the “theory of mind” was the only acceptable thesis to justify autism (Carruthers, Smith 1996). This illness is a disorder of the infant neurologic development characterized by the difficulty of social interaction and communication and lack of flexibility, repetitive activity due to the complex interaction of genetics, biological and environmental factors. According to this point of view, autism-related disorders might be caused by hypoactivity of mirror neurons, a group of neurons that is activated when an action is happening or when the individual is the spectator of the same action done by another person. These neurons are fundamental in life because they play a specific role in social interaction that allow an individual to recognize and internalize the same mental states of those who have faced as they were their own. Following the “broken mirror theory”, autistic patients would not be able to recognize someone else’s mental states and embody it because of the dysfunction of their neuron mirrors. They are not able to interpret and describe feelings, in particular facial expressions. Thanks to the discovery of the existence of a multitude of genes involved in neurodevelopment processes and the technological evolution in the diagnostic for brain’s images, PET, sMRI and fMRI have had a relevant impact on the comprehension of neurobiological basis in autism through the anatomic and functional study of the cerebral connectivity, which have definitely improved the capacity of examining cognitive processes. In fact, sMRI allow to reproduce high-defined images of the brain’s anatomical structure and it is widely used for the study of the autistic brain’s anatomical alteration. In particular it is used to obtain reliable measure of internal brain’s volume and the grey and white substance. The research
Previously the “theory of mind” was the only acceptable thesis to justify autism (Carruthers, Smith 1996). This illness is a disorder of the infant neurologic development characterized by the difficulty of social interaction and communication and lack of flexibility, repetitive activity due to the complex interaction of genetics, biological and environmental factors. According to this point of view, autism-related disorders might be caused by hypoactivity of mirror neurons, a group of neurons that is activated when an action is happening or when the individual is the spectator of the same action done by another person. These neurons are fundamental in life because they play a specific role in social interaction that allow an individual to recognize and internalize the same mental states of those who have faced as they were their own. Following the “broken mirror theory”, autistic patients would not be able to recognize someone else’s mental states and embody it because of the dysfunction of their neuron mirrors. They are not able to interpret and describe feelings, in particular facial expressions. Thanks to the discovery of the existence of a multitude of genes involved in neurodevelopment processes and the technological evolution in the diagnostic for brain’s images, PET, sMRI and fMRI have had a relevant impact on the comprehension of neurobiological basis in autism through the anatomic and functional study of the cerebral connectivity, which have definitely improved the capacity of examining cognitive processes. In fact, sMRI allow to reproduce high-defined images of the brain’s anatomical structure and it is widely used for the study of the autistic brain’s anatomical alteration. In particular it is used to obtain reliable measure of internal brain’s volume and the grey and white substance. The research