When a brain-injured person loses a particular function, researchers assume that the damaged area is involved in the lost function. Then they can test this hypothesis by creating the same injury in an animal brain to see whether the same function is lost. Researchers say that by dissecting and studying the brains of autistic people they may be able to find physical clues to unlock the mystery. New state of the art breakthroughs in neuroimaging allow scientists to peer directly into the brain and even study biochemical changes in discrete brain areas. The differences we see among autistic people raise questions of cause and effect that can only be answered using brain tissue.
Researchers also hope to link biological findings to behaviors.
In other words, there is hope that the Tissue Program will allow researchers to identify not just specific genes or other conditions present deep inside the brains of people with autism, but which conditions create each specific type of behavior. I hope that in five years I get a call from somebody who says we've made some breakthroughs and Clay's brain tissue was instrumental. That would be good. If the study of his brain helps spare parents and children what you and I and others have gone through, that would be a wonderful thing. Jim Mulvaney headed a team of reporters at the Orange County Register and won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative reporting.