jedusor | Sorry again for the urge you'll probably feel within 90 seconds

jillcook commented on that entry about yawning and mirror neurons, saying that her nephew is autistic and doesn't seem to yawn. So I did some googling and it turns out that hey, somebody else already thought of this. Severely autistic kids didn't yawn at all in response to other people yawning, while kids on the milder end of the autism spectrum yawned less than neurotypical kids.

The connection to mirror neurons is still just speculation, but then basically everything about mirror neurons is speculation at this point. I hope a bunch of breakthroughs happen in neuroanatomical research methods soon so we can start figuring this crap out, because it's really friggin' neat.