Brain 'Static' May Underlie Everyday Speech Difficulties in Autism

A UVA-led study with 306 youths used 128-channel high-density EEG to isolate the brain's aperiodic (non-rhythmic) background activity, finding that autistic participants show altered aperiodic patterns consistent with higher neural noise. This neural noise was linked to poorer everyday verbal communication—not to vocabulary or grammar—suggesting a potential biomarker to monitor therapy effects rather than a diagnostic tool. While promising, findings need replication in minimally verbal individuals and should be combined with other imaging methods before clinical use.