[Towards an integrated approach to infantile autism: the superior temporal lobe between neurosciences and...

The superior temporal lobe is currently at the focus of intensive research in infantile autism, a psychopathologic disorder apparently representing the severest failure of access to intersubjectivity, i.e. the ability to accept that others exist independently of oneself. Access to intersubjectivity seems to involve the superior temporal lobe, which is the seat of several relevant functions such as face and voice recognition and perception of others' movements, and coordinates the different sensory inputs that identify an object as being "external". The psychoanalytic approach to infantile autism and recent cognitive data are now converging, and intersubjectivity is considered to result from "mantling" or comodalization of sensory inputs from external objects. Recent brain neuroimaging studies point to anatomic and functional abnormalities of the superior temporal lobe in autistic children. Dialogue is therefore possible between these different disciplines, opening the way to an integrated view of infantile autism in which the superior temporal lobe holds a central place--not necessarily as a primary cause of autism but rather as an intermediary or a reflection of autistic functioning