Skip to main content

Spectrum: Autism Research News

Author

Grace Huckins

Grace Huckins is a former editorial intern at Spectrum. Her writing has been published in Scientific American, Wired and Popular Science. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in neuroscience at Stanford University in California, where she builds computer models of brain dynamics. In 2020, she was the AAAS Mass Media Fellow at Wired. She previously studied at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom as a Rhodes scholar.

November 2022
Helen Willsey in her lab at the University of California, San Francisco.

How Helen Willsey broke new ground, frogs in hand

by  /  29 November 2022

A young researcher faces down the skeptics.

Comments
February 2022
Conceptual illustration of female brain versus male brain.

Searching for the biology behind autism’s sex bias

by  /  11 February 2022

The fact that autism seems to affect more boys than girls is often attributed to diagnostic gaps, but the skew remains largely unexplained. Some scientists are turning to basic biology for answers.

Comments
July 2021
Brain composed of legos with various legos scattered around

Patchwork mutations present a new frontier for autism research

by  /  12 July 2021

Mosaic mutations, which affect only some of the body’s cells, play a small but meaningful role in autism. Though they are difficult to study, researchers are working to master their complexity.

Comments
June 2021
Mother racing to complete her research, while carrying two small children on her back.

Pandemic pressures may drive young scientists away from autism research

by  /  9 June 2021

After a year of juggling research, childcare and COVID-19 anxiety, some early-career academics are rethinking their place in autism science.

Comments
Illustration of transporter mice in brain maze

After 60 years, scientists are still trying to crack a mysterious serotonin-autism link

by  /  4 June 2021

The high levels of serotonin seen in the blood of some autistic people have confounded scientists for more than half a century. Despite so little progress, some researchers refuse to give up.

Comments
May 2021
Illustration of a researcher trying to navigate sea of genomic data.

Family approach yields new autism-linked genes

by  /  21 May 2021

About one-third of the HNRNP gene family’s 33 members may be associated with neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism.

Comments
Microglia activity seen in red, green and blue.

Autism mutation may cause big brain via ‘don’t eat me’ signals

by  /  17 May 2021

An autism-linked mutation could make the brain grow unusually large by prompting cells to express a chemical signal better known for its connection to cancer.

Comments

Autism-linked protein screen reveals hundreds of new interactions

by  /  14 May 2021

Researchers have uncovered more than 1,200 new protein-protein interactions involving proteins coded for by autism-linked genes.

Comments

Fetal brain scans may forecast autism traits in toddlers

by  /  7 May 2021

Children with highly folded and curved brains in utero tend to show autism-linked behaviors at 18 months of age, according to a longitudinal brain-imaging study.

Comments
Computer screen reflection in spectacles of DNA profile, close up of face

New ranking system flags clinically relevant ‘autism genes’

by  /  5 May 2021

A novel method to evaluate the strength of the evidence linking autism to specific genes could reveal which ones are most useful to screen for.

Comments