'Self', Autism and brain imaging

This is an intriguing study. The main hypothesis about A-S people is that they are unable to form models of others' thinking and reactions. This study seems to indicate that this may be because they don't experience a great sense of self to extrapolate from. The report Poor Recognition Of 'Self' Found In High Functioning People With Autism tells us;

In a normal 'self' response there, the brightest area was in the middle of that area of the brain. That response was significantly less in the brains of the youngsters with autism. 'They cognitively understood the game,' said Montague. 'It's not that they don't understand the game. It's that there is a very low level of 'self' response. It's impaired in them and the degree to which it is missing correlates with their symptom severity. The more you are missing the self response, the more autistic you are.'"

Now it needs a lot more thinking about, but if this pans out and the data hermeneutics is robust, then it seems to raise interesting issues about self-hood and social context. Not least of which, theologically, is what Resurrection means for A-S people and to interrogate some views about 'losing self' and 'hating self'. It seems to indicate there may be something in the interpretation that loving neighbour as oneself implies loving oneself, but what if ones sense of self is "dim"? What does this mean for the discipleship of A-S people? And beyond that, what would this tell us about the spiritual formation of those not affected by A-S disorders?

I'm not going to attempt answers here and now. I need to treasure the questions first and let them disclose more to me first.