A virus that ferries healthy copies of the Rett syndrome gene across the blood-brain barrier can reverse symptoms in female mice that model the disorder, according to a report published 21 August in the Journal of Neuroscience. The approach is the closest yet to simulating a workable treatment for the autism-related disorder.
Siblings of children with autism who are later diagnosed with the disorder themselves become more active, less adaptable and less likely to approach others over time, according to a study published 3 July in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
An enzyme that may keep RNA tangle-free as it’s translated into protein is missing in some people with schizophrenia and learning difficulties. The enzyme also cooperates with the protein missing in fragile X syndrome to bind RNA, suggesting a role in protein synthesis. That’s the upshot from two studies published in the September Nature Neuroscience.
Researchers have uncovered the mechanism by which a candidate drug for Angelman syndrome activates UBE3A, the gene that is silenced in the syndrome, according to a study published 20 August in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
People with autism and those with duplications of the 15q11-13 chromosomal region share a distinctive pattern of gene expression in the brain, according to unpublished research presented Friday at the Dup15q Alliance Scientific Meeting in Sacramento, California.
Neurons derived from individuals who carry extra copies of an autism-linked chromosomal region have gene expression patterns that are unexpectedly similar to those of neurons with deletions of the region. The unpublished findings were presented Thursday at the Dup15q Alliance Scientific Meeting in Sacramento, California.
A new statistical model pulls together information about inherited and spontaneous mutations in a single analysis to enhance the search for autism candidate genes. The method, called transmission and de novo association, or TADA, was described 15 August in PLoS Genetics.
Mice that express elevated levels of an autism-linked gene in the nucleus of neurons show social and communication problems, according to unpublished research presented Thursday at the Dup15q Alliance Scientific Meeting in Sacramento, California.
As much as 30 percent of children diagnosed with bipolar disorder may also have autism, suggests a study published in the June issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.
Small regulatory RNA molecules are most active between infancy and early childhood in a region of the brain known for complex thinking and behavior, reports a new study published 6 August in Molecular Psychiatry. The finding, based on an analysis of postmortem brains, may provide insight into what goes wrong in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.