Spectrum: Autism Research News

Prenatal genetic tests that can detect copy number variations, including those linked to autism, could raise tough questions for doctors and parents.

A new clinical trial, conducted entirely online, could provide a model for how to quickly and efficiently test some potential treatments for autism.

Minority children tend to show more severe symptoms of autism early on, regardless of social class.

Scientists worry that funding cuts to the National Children’s Study, an ambitious effort to track 100,000 children in the United States from before birth through age 21, may harm recruitment efforts.

Immigrating to another country during pregnancy appears to boost the risk of having a child who has low-functioning autism, according to a comprehensive, population-based study in Sweden. The research was published online 23 February in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

More than 250 genes in the human genome — about one percent of our genes — can be eliminated without serious health effects, according to research published last week in Science.

A new meta-analysis shows that less than two percent of participants in studies of behavioral interventions for autism are adults.

Brain imaging studies of people with autism show that specific areas respond more strongly to song than do those of controls. The opposite is true when listening to speech.

A new website invites the public to help map the ‘connectome,’ the pattern of connections among all the neurons in our brain.

What makes humans so different from our primate cousins? The answer may lie in unique patterns of gene expression soon after birth, primarily in genes required to form the junctions between neurons.