Memory is the scaffolding upon which all mental life is constructed.

I think the gold standard is a clinical diagnosis, that an astute clinician interacting with a child, interviewing the parents, talking with teachers makes the diagnosis based on some standard tests and also on clinical impression and skill.

In fact, many children come to autism clinics early on with GI/bowel disturbances.

The brain immediately confronts us with its great complexity. The human brain weighs only three to four pounds but contains about 100 billion neurons. Although that extraordinary number is of the same order of magnitude as the number of stars in the Milky Way, it cannot account for the complexity of the brain. The liver probably contains 100 million cells, but 1,000 livers do not add up to a rich inner life.

There is no question there are differences between male and female brains. They are called sexual dimorphisms and you can point to different anatomical structures.

I don't know of any neuropsychiatric disorder other than an infection that has been cured. But the goal is to improve the quality of life of people who experience autistic symptomology and I just think we will make progress on that.

Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by two main components: an inability to interact socially with other people with joint attention to understand other people's thoughts.