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.

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.

There are clear differences between and some- and there may be protective factors in a female brain.

In autism there is just genes in part more or less of a probability that you will have the disorder, and that is where interactions with the environment are key.

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.

Autism reaches out in many different directions. It can be associated with language delays. It can be associated with epilepsy. It can be associated with some degree of intellectual disability, but the two core features of autism, I see, is impairments and social cognition, understanding and in restricted interests and repetitive behaviors.

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