Research Areas
Baron-Cohen was a co-author of the first study to show that children with autism have delays in the development of a theory of mind (ToM) (Cognition, 1985).
Baron-Cohen’s research over the subsequent 10 years provided much of the evidence for the ToM deficit, culminating in two edited anthologies (Understanding Other Minds, 1993, and 2000). His research group have linked the origins of the ToM deficit to joint attention (Brit J. Dev Psychol, 1987) and showed that absence of joint attention at 18 months is a predictor of later autism (British Journal of Psychiatry, 1992, 1996). Based on these and other findings, he proposed a model of the development of ‘mindreading’ in his widely cited monograph (Mindblindness, 1995 MIT Press). Baron-Cohen has also conducted brain imaging work examining the autistic brain. These studies highlighted differences between the typical and autistic brain in the orbitofrontal cortex (Brit. J. Psychiatry, 1994) PMID 7866679 and the amygdala (Euro. J. Neuroscience, 1999), the latter leading him to propose the amygdala theory of autism (Neurosci. Behav. Rev. 2000). In 2010, with his former doctoral student Michael Lombardo, they showed that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex does not differentiate self from other in autism and accounts for variation in social deficits. In 2011, with Lombardo, they also showed that the right temporoparietal junction was hypoactive in autism during ToM tasks and also accounted for variation in social deficits.
In the late 1990s Baron-Cohen developed the hypothesis that typical sex differences may provide a neurobiological and psychological understanding of autism (the empathizing–systemizing theory). The theory proposes that autism is an extreme of the male brain (J. Cog. Neurosci, 1997; TICS, 2002). This led to him situating ToM within the broader domain of empathy, and to the development of a new construct (systemizing). The extreme male brain (EMB) theory of autism sees autism as being on a continuum with individual differences in the general population (sex differences). Baron-Cohen proposes that the cause of autism at a biological level may be hyper-masculinization. This hypothesis posits that certain features of autism (‘obsessions’ and repetitive behaviour, previously regarded as ‘purposeless’) as being highly purposive, intelligent (hyper-systemizing), and a sign of a different way of thinking. He wrote a popular book on the topic of sex differences and its relationship to autism (The Essential Difference, 2003).
Baron-Cohen launched the Cambridge Longitudinal Foetal Testosterone (FT) Project in the late 1990s, a research program following children of mothers who had amniocentesis. This aimed to study the effects of individual differences in FT on later child development. This is summarised in a technical monograph (Prenatal Testosterone in Mind, 2004 MIT Press). This study revealed that FT is negatively correlated with social and language development, and is positively correlated with attention to detail and a number of autistic traits (Brit. J. Psychology, 2009). His work studying FT led him to test the hyper-masculinization of autism at the psychometric level and in regard to developmental neurobiology (Science, 2005; PLOS Biology, 2011). The role of foetal testosterone in autism remains to be assessed in clinical cases, but gains some support from the recent discovery from Baron-Cohen's lab of androgen-related genes being associated with autistic traits, empathy, and Asperger's Syndrome (Autism Research, 2009), and from the finding that a precursor to testosterone (androstenedione) is elevated in autism (Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2011). With Mike Lombardo he conducted the first study in humans of where FT influences grey matter in the brain (J. Neuroscience 2012). He is currently collaborating with the Danish Biobank to test if FT is elevated in people who go on to develop autism.
Baron-Cohen has developed software for special education (Mindreading) and an animation series to teach children with autism to recognise and understand emotions (The Transporters) both of which were BAFTA nominated and have been scientifically evaluated to show that they have benefit to emotional and social learning in autism. Baron-Cohen's work was applied to intervention in the book "Teaching Children With Autism To Mindread" (Wiley, 1997).
Baron-Cohen has worked in another research area: synaesthesia, a neurological condition in which a sensation in one modality (e.g., hearing) triggers a perception in another modality (e.g., colour). He and his colleagues were the first to develop the Test of Genuineness (Perception, 1987) and suggest that synaesthesia is the result of a breakdown in modularity (Perception, 1993). They were also the first to confirm the existence of synaesthesia using neuroimaging (Brain, 1995 and Nature Neuroscience, 1999) and to demonstrate that it is a heritable condition, conducting the first genetic study of synaesthesia (Perception, 1996; American Journal of Human Genetics, 2009).
Baron-Cohen is co-editor in chief of the journal Molecular Autism. and is Chair of the NICE Guideline Development Group for adults with autism.
Read more about this topic: Simon Baron-Cohen
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