The divergence and convergence of autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders: neurophysiological evidence for a shared phenotype through MEG and 1H-MRS

Autism and schizophrenia are heterogeneous, spectrum disorders that have substantial symptom overlap. This thesis investigates whether the relationship between the disorders, at a non-clinical trait level, reflects a cluster of shared symptoms, and whether these shared symptoms are associated with auditory processing and/or excitatory to inhibitory neurotransmitter abnormalities. A symptom cluster called Social Disorganisation was revealed, and nonclinical high Social Disorganisation scorers differed in auditory change processing and excitatory to inhibitory neurotransmitter concentrations than low scorers. These findings provide important, novel evidence that Social Disorganisation links the autism and schizophrenia spectra, and may have underlying neural connectivity and neurotransmission abnormalities.