A drug already in clinical trials as a tanning compound raises brain levels of oxytocin — a hormone and neurotransmitter involved in social bonding — researchers reported Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego. Higher levels of oxytocin can help animals recognize their mates and turn to a friend for help, according to two posters presented at the meeting.

Three themes — heterogeneity, phenotype, and trajectory — are beginning to emerge in diverse lines of inquiry into autism, according to speakers at a satellite symposium of the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

Brain imaging experiments often require the participant to perform tasks while lying inside a brain scanner for up to an hour — not a pleasant experience for anyone, let alone a child with autism. Saturday afternoon at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego, Steve Petersen described ‘resting state’ imaging, in which participants lie in the scanner for just five to ten minutes.

A new brain imaging technique may provide a powerful tool for understanding social interaction, and how it is disrupted in conditions such as autism, according to a poster presented Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

Mice bearing the genetic defect that causes Timothy syndrome show many autism-like behaviors, and may also have enhanced cognitive abilities like those seen in a small number of people with autism, suggests a poster presented Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

A variety of animal models can help researchers better address human-specific questions in neurological disorders such as autism, says Theresa Lee, who has used exotic animal models to study circadian rhythms.

The gene-environment interactions that are thought to contribute to many cases of autism can now be explored in a mouse model, according to a poster presented Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

Researchers have narrowed down a genetic region associated with autism to one protein, cadherin 8, that helps bind cells together, according to a study published online in October in the Journal of Medical Genetics. This is the first time CDH8, the gene that encodes this protein, has been associated with autism.

Stem cell studies show that a mutation in the neuroligin-4 gene disrupts the normal development of synapses, the junction between neurons, according to unpublished data shown Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

Counting neurons in the brains of people with autism who died young might strike some people as grisly or tedious. But Eric Courchesne sees it is the key to understanding why people with autism experience rapid overgrowth of certain brain regions early in life.