Inactivating TAOK1 prompts tentacle-like protrusions to form all over a neuron’s surface, revealing the gene’s role in molding the membrane.

This edition takes aim at the autism-intervention evidence base with a slew of null results, plus findings that challenge a prevailing autism brain theory.

Discussion on Twitter this week swirled around the evidence base for autism interventions, a new tool for visualizing cells, and the relationship between attention problems and repetitive movements.

‘Tis the season for grad school meet and greets. But what are interviewers looking for, and how can early-career researchers bring their best?

Shortly after the study’s publication, experts critiqued it on PubPeer and other online platforms.

Moving into the new year, researchers on Twitter talked about motion as a confounder for brain-imaging studies, connections between macaque brain activity and body movements, and the importance of motor-speech research in autism.

Postmortem brain samples from people with one of six conditions, including autism, show distinct signatures of over- and underexpression of immune genes.

Most people with the X-linked syndrome have autism traits, and about one-quarter meet diagnostic criteria for the condition.

Many autism-linked genes are somehow tied to cilia, the tiny hair-like sensors that stud a cell’s surface. But the question remains whether, and how, cilia differences contribute to the condition.

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