We take advantage of a rare opportunity to examine human brain physiology and gene expression in vivo.
This study will provide three important pieces of information to unravel the molecular and neuronal circuits
underlying Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD):
1) High-resolution neurophysiological measurements from the temporal lobe of ASD children
2) Gene expression information in brain tissue that has been physiologically characterized
3) Gene expression information from the ASD human brain in vivo
To the best of our knowledge, none of these pieces of information is currently available in the growing
literature of ASD studies. These novel measurements will complement existing efforts, particularly those using
non-invasive methods to examine ASD brain activity and those involving gene expression measurements in
post-mortem tissue, blood-derived tissue or animal brain tissue. This study constitutes the first direct
examination of gene expression and physiology in the ASD brain.
