Abstract
This case report describes an 8-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and
obsessive comorbidity who underwent a four-month personalized naturopathic intervention.
The intervention targeted multiple pathophysiological axes simultaneously, including
hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis regulation, sleep disturbances, cerebral blood
perfusion, neuroinflammation, cognition, and mental/emotional regulation.
Clinical outcomes were qualitatively assessed through reports of profound changes
observed both at home and at school, encompassing executive functions, emotional
regulation, sensory processing, social competencies, language and communication,
academic performance, and adaptive autonomy. In parallel, quantitative comparisons of pre-
and post-intervention quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) recordings revealed mild
yet coherent neurophysiological changes, including the emergence of a distinct alpha peak,
a shift in the origin of excessive high-beta activity toward Brodmann area 23 (BA23), and a
reduction in interhemispheric amplitude asymmetries.
The findings are interpreted from the perspective of complexity theory and illustrate a
dissociation between the marked clinical improvements observed after the intervention and
the electrical biomarkers conventionally used to monitor such changes. This dissociation
may reflect the non-linear reorganization of neurobiological systems, whereby shifts in
functional organization (i.e., transitions between attractor states) allow new behavioral
properties to emerge prior to the normalization of surface electrical parameters.
This case provides preliminary evidence that personalized naturopathic praxiology may
modulate complex systems in ASD, as the magnitude, simultaneity, and coherence of the
clinical and neurophysiological changes observed over a four-month period are unlikely to be
attributable solely to spontaneous maturation at this developmental stage, supporting the
hypothesis that a substantial functional change was induced by the intervention.