Sonia Gray

Well, maybe it's because we always want black and white answers.

And what I've realised, particularly doing work in this field of neurodiversity, is there often isn't one answer, is there?

When you're talking about the brain, for example, with ADHD, yes, it's about dopamine, but it's also about all these other factors.

And it's about the interplay of everything, which blows my mind a little bit because we just want simple answers to as you'd get maybe in a physical, you know, a blood test or something.

We've known since the 1970s that autism has a large genetic component, but being able to pinpoint an exact biological pathway for an individual or whānau, that is fairly recent.

But that's what a team at the Centre for Brain Research at Auckland Uni are doing.

Dr Jessie Jacobson heads the team, and they're working to understand the genetic basis of autism.

And the kaupapa here is really important.

This is not in any way about solving, changing or curing, but about giving more precise and refined answers that go beyond an observational assessment.

It's an opportunity to improve someone's quality of life.

To understand more, I sat down with Jessie and with the autistic advisor on the project, Dr Ruth Monk,

Ruth Monk is the autistic advisor on this project and is also an accomplished medical researcher.

Ruth says having these definitive answers goes beyond just helping with diagnosis and support.

In many cases, it's personal.

The way it works is Jessie and her team take a sample of an individual's DNA and look for changes in genes they know are associated with autism.

And sometimes not only do they get clarity, they get connection.

So is what you're saying, this is fascinating to me, but I might have it wrong, that you can identify changes in a specific gene, that individual or family can find other people with

that same change and they're likely to have similar experiences or presentations or there's, yeah?

Were the genes already identified or was that part of your work?

So, I mean, I don't know if this is the right thing to ask or not.