The Presenters

David Amaral

Director, Autism BrainNet

David Amaral is distinguished professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Davis MIND Institute.

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Alison Singer

President, Autism Science Foundation

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In a webinar on 15 October, David Amaral and Alison Singer suggested that the only way to answer questions related to the fundamental genetic and neuropathological aspects of autism is to study brain tissue from individuals with autism at the cellular and molecular level.

Amaral, distinguished professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Davis, serves as director of Autism BrainNet, a consortium of academic sites that plans to collect, store and distribute brain tissue for autism research. Singer, president of the Autism Science Foundation, leads the initiative’s ‘It Takes Brains’ campaign — an outreach effort aimed at increasing tissue donations for research.

(Autism BrainNet is funded collaboratively by the research and advocacy organization Autism Speaks and the Simons Foundation, SFARI.org’s parent organization.)

You can watch a complete replay of the webinar above.

Use the comments section below to submit questions we didn’t have time to discuss during the Q&A session or to pose follow-up questions for Amaral and Singer.