Events
Upcoming Events
Autism, autisms, or neurodevelopmental disorders?
Adjunct Scientist, Mouse Imaging Centre, The Hospital for Sick Children
Associate Professor in Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto
On January 29, 2020, Jason Lerch will explore this question: What do modern ways of looking at brains and genes tell us about autism – or autisms – and its relation to attention deficit disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and other related disorders of brain development?
Past Events
The genetic influences on autism spectrum disorder risk
Associate Member, Broad Institute
On January 30, 2019, Elise Robinson provided an overview of the role that genetic factors play in autism spectrum disorders and discussed the next steps to further understand autism genetics.
The predictive impairment hypothesis in autism: An empirical assessment
On December 12, 2018, Pawan Sinha and Dagmar Sternad reviewed a recently proposed hypothesis about the nature of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that posits that the common traits of the disorder are manifestations of an individual’s difficulty in making predictions about cause and effect.
Rethinking autism and animal models: A systems perspective
On November 28, 2018, André Fenton discussed work with mouse genetic models of fragile X syndrome (FXS) – the most common single-gene cause of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms – and focused on the utility of such models to evaluate hypotheses for understanding ASD. He evaluated distinct hypotheses by assessing synapse function and the action potential discharge of knowledge-expressing hippocampus “place cells” during behaviors that require varying cognitive effort.
SFARI Society for Neuroscience 2018 Social
Join the SFARI science team and leaders in the autism research community for an informal evening of food, drink, conversation and mingling on 5 November 2018 in San Diego.
Thinking differently about neurodevelopmental disorders and autism: Lumping vs. splitting
Child Neurologist and Senior Clinician Scientist, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital
Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Toronto
On September 26, 2018, Evdokia Anagnostou discussed the challenge of rethinking classification systems and diagnostic labels for autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders in light of recent findings from research and clinical studies.
Autism genetics: Where have we been and where are we going?
On April 10, 2018, Matthew State reviewed the progress that has been made in autism genetics over the past 10 years and the role that the Simons Simplex Collection (SSC) played in this (r)evolution. He also addressed the potential contribution of ongoing genomic studies including whole-genome sequencing as well as the challenges and opportunities of leveraging the genetic findings to identify pathophysiological mechanisms.