Director’s message: Fall 2024

Because of you

By David G. Amaral, Ph.D., Scientific Director of Autism BrainNet

Leaves are falling and we are approaching both the holiday season and the end of 2024. This year, Autism BrainNet has reached its 10th anniversary. Because of the help and collaboration of families, family advocacy groups, organ procurement organizations and medical examiners we are very close to reaching the milestone of 400 donations. This success is also due to a dedicated Autism BrainNet team that ensures a safe, sensitive and secure donation of postmortem brains to the collection.

The graphic below shows the breakdown of our current collection. While this may seem like a large number of donations, the heterogeneity of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders necessitates a very large number of samples in order to carry out the highest quality science.

Since autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder, it is also likely that the changes in brain structure and function of autistic individuals is different at different ages. Here again the total number of donations does not tell the whole story. As seen in the chart below, most of the donations to Autism BrainNet are from individuals older than 11 and younger than 60. We expect that there will be an increasing number of future donations from autistic individuals older than 60. And this is important because an emerging area of research indicates that autism increases the possibility of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease. Examining the brains of older autistic individuals will advance this important area of research.

Another area where our collection is biased is in the number of male and female donations. As seen below, there are far more postmortem brain donations from male donors than female donors. This roughly parallels what we know about the prevalence of autism in general. But, given the increasing evidence that both the behavioral and biological characteristics of autism in males and females is partially different, it is important that we pay adequate attention to sex differences in our studies of the brain.

It is for these reasons and to ensure that we have adequate amounts of brain tissue to support high quality research that we continue to reach out for additional postmortem brain donations. For more information on who can become a brain donor with Autism BrainNet, please visit our website.

We are incredibly grateful to all the individuals and families who have made a donation thus far and to those who are considering making a donation in the future. For now, we wish you a joyous holiday season with good food, good cheer and optimism about the future.