Chemical exposures, pre- and neonatal infections, psychosocial stress, and the cross-generational cultural and epigenetic impacts of these and other toxicants become an integrated, sometimes synergistic, signal that can overwhelm essential neurodevelopmental regulation. We characterize that dynamic through statistical models based on the asymptotic limit theorems of control and information theories. Schizophrenia and autism emerge as two different 'phases' of pathological neurodevelopmental 'condensations' that impair the dynamic, shifting global workspace of normal mental function.
Keywords: Autism; Control theory; Data rate theorem; Information theory; Mitochondrial free energy; Phase transition; Rate–distortion theorem; Schizophrenia.