Mark Johnson

Professor
Birkbeck University of London

Mark Johnson is professor of experimental psychology and head of the psychology department at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

From this contributor

Spectrum

By Mark Johnson

18 August 2015

6 min read

Autism may arise from brain’s response to early disturbances

Autism is not a developmental disorder, but rather the brain’s adaptive response to early genetic or environmental disturbances, says Mark Johnson.

Spectrum

Autism may arise from brain’s response to early disturbances

By Mark Johnson

18 August 2015 | 6 min read

Spectrum

By Mark Johnson

21 August 2012

3 min read

Executive confusion

Among siblings of children with autism, those with better prefrontal cortex functioning — observable as relatively strong executive functions for their age — are better able to compensate for atypicalities in other brain systems early in life, and are therefore less likely to receive a diagnosis of autism later in their development, argues Mark H. Johnson.

Spectrum

Executive confusion

By Mark Johnson

21 August 2012 | 3 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

This paper changed my life

By Sidarta Ribeiro

14 July 2026

4 min read

Illustration of birdsong, bird brain, and DNA.

This paper changed my life: Embracing an early model for naturalistic neuroscience

A 1992 PNAS paper showed how birdsong upregulates the expression of an immediate early gene in bird forebrains. The work revealed to Ribeiro the importance of studying molecular responses in naturalistic contexts.

This paper changed my life