Eric Courchesne is Professor of Neurosciences in the School of Medicine at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and director of the NIH-funded UCSD Autism Center of Excellence. He is a leading expert on brain structural and functional abnormalities associated with autism. His Autism Center of Excellence aims to identify biobehavioral markers of autism that will allow for earlier diagnosis and treatment by integrating behavioral, developmental, genetic, neuroanatomical and neurofunctional findings. Current Center research includes MRI studies have identified structures that are abnormal at infancy in autism and elucidated patterns of abnormal growth from infancy through adulthood. Current functional brain imaging techniques have established links between autistic symptoms in infants and toddlers and the brain sites responsible for them. Studies of brain tissue have discovered novel gene expression profiles and cellular defects in the frontal cortex at the youngest ages in autism and have additionally characterized how these abnormalities change with age from early childhood and to adulthood. Dr. Courchesne’s studies have resulted in over 170 publications, including papers in Science, JAMA, Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. His research is supported through grants from NIMH, NINDS, NICHD, the Cure Autism Now Foundation, Autism Speaks and the Simons Foundation.