A mysterious cluster of sudden deaths among young people who had a genetic syndrome is drawing attention to the high rate of unexplained deaths in individuals with autism and epilepsy.

Identical twins can be genetically different, which could explain why they do not always share disorders such as schizophrenia or autism, according to a study published in March in PLoS One.

A delayed response to unexpected changes in sound frequency is a marker for language impairment and autism, according to a study published in March in Biological Psychiatry.

People with autism are better able to visualize objects rotating in space — perhaps because their brains are wired differently than healthy controls.

Early trauma alters both behavior and gene expression in three generations of mice, suggesting that epigenetic changes may contribute to ‘hidden heritability’ in neuropsychiatric disorders.

A powerful cell that dampens electrical signaling in the brain could help unravel the disrupted brain wiring seen in people with autism, according to results presented yesterday at the Wiring the Brain meeting in Ireland.

Small duplications or deletions of DNA regions — called micro-copy number variations — may not lead directly to disease, but could raise the risk of autism when combined with other mutations, according to a study published in March in the American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics.

Children with autism and those who have fathers older than 31 both have lower-than-normal levels of proteins that regulate other genes, according to a study published in February in PLoS One.

Regression, a sudden loss of language and social ability, does not lead to more severe autism, according to a study published in March in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. The study suggests that how autism develops does not influence the long-term outcome of children with the disorder.

Cultural stigma, lack of awareness about mental health and poor medical infrastructure have led to inaccurate diagnoses and artificially low autism prevalence in many countries around the world, epidemiologists say.