RT Journal
A1 Courchesne E, Ahrens-Barbeau C, Barnes C
T1 NEuron number in children with autism—reply
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 2012
FD February 22
VO 307
IS 8
SP 783
OP 784
DO 10.1001/jama.2012.192
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2012.192
AB 
In Reply: Drs Anghelescu and Dettling raise the question about how the autistic children came to the attention of the brain and tissue banks. Most commonly, autism cases come to brain banks in 1 of 3 ways: (1) families may register premortem to have their child's brain donated to a brain and tissue bank upon the child's death; (2) cases are identified as possibly having autism by a medical examiner based on information from the family, who then contacts the brain bank; or (3) at the time of death, parents contact a brain bank to make arrangements for donation. In all cases in our study, the brain and tissue banks followed postmortem procedures to determine a final diagnosis.