Mouse model mirrors social quirks of Williams syndrome
Mice lacking one copy of a gene associated with Williams syndrome share the hyper-sociability of people with the disorder, according to a paper published online 3 December in Autism Research.
Mice lacking one copy of a gene associated with Williams syndrome share the hyper-sociability of people with the disorder, according to a paper published online 3 December in Autism Research.
Teenagers with autism are less efficient at rapidly shifting their eye gaze — an indicator of motor ability — compared with either typically developing controls or adolescents with Asperger syndrome, according to a study published in November in Cerebellum.
The goal of studying siblings of children with autism is to identify an early diagnostic marker for the disorder. What researchers are finding instead are distinct traits shared by family members who remain healthy.
Most studies define high-functioning children as those with an IQ above 70 or 80, but this is problematic for a number of reasons, say some scientists. The assumption underlying the use of high IQ as a synonym for high functioning is suspect because social and communicative abilities may have a far greater impact on an individual’s daily interactions.
Children with autism are less interested in watching an activity, such as a parent and child putting together a puzzle, compared with typically developing controls, according to a study published in November in Brain Research.
Over the next five years, dozens of researchers funded by the $40 million ‘NIH Human Connectome Project’ will map the circuits of the human brain, tracing neural pathways and learning how different regions work together in synchrony.
Spontaneous mutations that change a single DNA base account for a large proportion of cases of unexplained mental retardation, according to a study published in the December Nature Genetics.
The neurons of people with Rett syndrome contain an overabundance of retrotransposons — DNA sequences that copy and insert themselves into new spots throughout the genome — during early development, according to a study published 18 November in Nature.
Children with autism play eagerly with robots — and their social interactions with people improve as a result.
The pattern of interactions among different genes in yeast cells changes in response to disease-like conditions, in this case a DNA-damaging agent, according to a study published 3 December in Science. Mapping epistasis — how various cellular factors work together — is key to understanding complex disorders, such as autism.