Going forward, our bistable perception paradigm combined with two-photon imaging and optogenetic manipulations (Yizhar et al., 2011; Nikolenko et al., 2013; Sofroniew et al., 2016) in the MECP2 duplication mouse model can be used to directly and causally test the following theories of the autism: excitatory-inhibitory imbalance, weak central coherence, dorsal stream deficiency and disrupted intracolumnar and cortex-wide connectivity. The gene discussed is MECP2; the disease is autism.