A new study fans the flames of a link between autism and schizophrenia, finding that children with autism are at a three-fold greater risk of psychotic episodes in their teen years than their typically developing peers.
A technique borrowed from geography bolsters the idea that altered wiring in the brain’s gray matter plays a role in autism, according to a report published 22 July in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The simplest form of in vitro fertilization does not increase the risk for autism or intellectual disability, but the effect of other fertility treatments is still unclear, according to two large Scandinavian studies published in July.
The first sizable study to use whole-genome sequencing to investigate autism has shown its mettle, revealing new mutations and candidate genes for the disorder, according to a report published 11 July in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Researchers have debuted the most comprehensive map to date showing how the suite of methyl tags on the DNA of brain cells changes across the genome over a lifetime. The map, published 4 July in Science, suggests that shifting patterns of methylation may guide key periods of brain development.
Autism prevalence in three regions of eastern Canada rose by as much as 15 percent in less than a decade, but only part of that increase may be genuine, according to a report published 16 June in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.