New Haven, Connecticut – September 07, 2026 -- Yale School of Medicine (YSM) has secured close to $25 million in research funding from the Aligning Research to Impact Autism (ARIA) program, part of ARIA's Human Neurodevelopment Research Centers initiative. The funding will support efforts to build a foundational atlas and model of human brain development, pinpointing when autism-related developmental differences first emerge and how they diverge from typical developmental trajectories.
Grant targets earliest stages of brain formation to close a critical scientific gap
Researchers currently lack a high-resolution, dynamic map of how the human brain develops, despite decades of neuroscience progress. Brain maturation unfolds over nearly 20 years, and access to developing human brain tissue remains limited, making early-stage study difficult even as autism-related differences emerge during the brain's most rapid period of change. Most neurons and synaptic circuits form within the first years of life, meaning adult brain models cannot simply be scaled down to represent infant or early childhood brain development.
Yale-Harvard team to build atlases and cellular models of developmental divergence
The initiative is led by Nenad Sestan, M.D., Ph.D., the Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Neuroscience at Yale, alongside Paola Arlotta, Ph.D., the Golub Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University. The ARIA funding will support two projects: a high-resolution atlas of neural connections in the developing brain, and cellular and molecular models charting where autism developmental trajectories diverge from typical development.
These two projects form part of four coordinated Yale-Harvard research efforts under ARIA, which also include developing patient-derived brain organoids to link genetic, developmental and clinical characteristics, and applying generative artificial intelligence to predict intervention strategies and prioritize treatment targets.
CDC data show 1 in 31 U.S. children now diagnosed with autism
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 31 children in the United States is diagnosed with autism, while the World Health Organization estimates roughly 1 in 100 children globally have the condition. Yale School of Medicine Dean Nancy J. Brown said the funding is intended to help identify autism earlier, establish clearer biomarkers, and enable more precise interventions for individuals and families.
Sestan said the collaboration across institutions and disciplines aims to accelerate scientific discovery, improve early detection, and inform more effective intervention strategies for autism.