Unlike typical controls, adults with autism do not synchronize their eye blinks with those of other people, according to a study published in the July issue of Neuropsychologia.

By zapping mouse brains with blue and yellow light beams, scientists have manipulated the animals’ social behaviors and bolstered a popular theory of what causes autism.

Giving GLYX-13, a drug that targets an autism-associated brain pathway, to rats bred to be less social increases how much they communicate while playing.

The first study to sequence more than 100 genes on the X chromosome in people with autism or schizophrenia has turned up some promising leads.

A study using action potentials, the electrical impulses that trigger signaling, shows that neurons lacking MeCP2, the Rett syndrome protein, have stronger neuronal signals compared with controls, according to a study published in the July Journal of Neurophysiology.

Infants with fragile X syndrome spend more time looking at a toy before switching their attention elsewhere than do healthy controls, according to a study published 1 July in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Only a fraction of autism studies use the gold standard tests to diagnose the disorder in study participants.

A variant of neurexin 1, a gene linked to both autism and schizophrenia, is associated with less brain matter than normal in healthy individuals, according to a study published 8 June in PLoS ONE.

The protein missing in people with fragile X syndrome regulates the activity of more than 800 other proteins, including some key players in autism, according to a study published 22 July in Cell. Many of these autism-associated proteins cluster on either side of the synapse, the junction between neurons.

Small fragments of RNA, called microRNAs, can fine-tune the levels of proteins at the junctions between neurons in response to cell signals, according to a study published 10 June in Molecular Cell.