It depends on a recent body of work which suggests that the brain's white matter (the wiring that connects the main bodies of the nerve cells, or grey matter, together) is less dense and less abundant in the brain of an autistic person than in that of a non-autist.

ECONOMIST: Autism

Their main finding was that a nerve impulse, now known as an action potential, is caused by the movement in opposite directions across the axon's surface membrane of sodium and potassium ions.

ECONOMIST: Andrew Huxley

His conclusion is that the main difference is in the structure of the small columns of nerve cells that are packed together to form the cerebral cortex.

ECONOMIST: Autism and extraordinary ability: Genius locus | The

There is also a crippling loss of nerve cells in brain areas involved in cognitive functions which leads to the main behavioural symptom, failure of the memory.

ECONOMIST: Disposing of dementia