The anxiety drug diazepam, commonly marketed as Valium, reverses deficits in sensory integration in a mouse model of autism, according to research presented Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans.
Individually, common genetic variants confer little risk for autism. But taken together, they may contribute significantly, predicts a statistical analysis published 15 October in Molecular Autism.
People with Phelan-McDermid syndrome, which causes severe intellectual disability and is often accompanied by autism, also have a blunted response to pain. New research on a mouse model of the syndrome, presented at the 2012 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, aims to find out why.
A small pilot study suggests that the drug propranolol, typically used to treat hypertension and anxiety, enhances functional connectivity between brain regions and improves verbal fluency, according to research presented Saturday at the 2012 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans.
Which test a clinician uses to diagnose a child with autism may determine whether that child meets the criteria proposed in the newest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Emerging technologies and software may help assess the subtle behaviors, such as gaze or social gestures, that go awry in children with autism, researchers said at the Engineering and Autism conference earlier this month.
A comprehensive analysis of large deletions and duplications of DNA bolsters the idea that some cases of developmental delay and autism result from a combination of two damaging hits to the genome, according to research published 12 September in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Sophisticated eye-tracking tools and other technologies are making it easier to record and analyze social interactions, and may help researchers study social deficits in children with autism. Researchers debuted some of these tools 28 September at the Engineering and Autism conference in Los Angeles.
Adapting the hospital environment to suit the needs of children with autism can cut down how long the children spend there and how often they return, suggests a study in the 2012 issue of Autism Research and Treatment.
The nonprofit Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle plans to make neurons from stem cells derived from people with a number of different disorders. The resource, described 25 September at a conference in New York, will be available to all scientists.
