Spectrum: Autism Research News

Autistic children taking the drug showed improvements in some behaviors but not in their social skills.

Here is a roundup of news and research for the week of 1 May.

Compared with their non-autistic peers, young autistic girls have a thicker cortex that thins more quickly with age.

Exposing neurons to valproic acid, a well-known environmental risk factor for autism, disrupts their ability to generate different proteins from the same gene.

Cells from people with fragile X syndrome overproduce — but don’t accumulate — proteins. New work suggests that excessive protein breakdown may account for this discrepancy, and explain some of the syndrome’s traits.

Many autism-linked genes are somehow tied to cilia, the tiny hair-like sensors that stud a cell’s surface. But the question remains whether, and how, cilia differences contribute to the condition.

Collecting brain scans from thousands of people can be challenging in autism research; data-sharing and collaborative efforts can help drive results that stand up to statistical scrutiny.

People with the autism-linked syndrome lack a protein implicated in several cancers, but it’s unclear whether — or how — they are protected from malignancies.

The mutations occur spontaneously in noncoding stretches of DNA that control gene expression.

Swiss biotech Stalicla hopes to bring precision medicine to autism. Experts praise efforts to identify autism subgroups, but evidence to support the company’s claims has yet to be seen.