Spectrum: Autism Research News

Research roundup

• Neurons derived from people with CDKL5 deficiency disorder, a condition associated with epilepsy and intellectual delay, are unusually large and excitable. Molecular Psychiatry
• Using magnetic resonance imaging in large clinical trials of autistic children may not be feasible because many children have difficulty completing scans. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
• Autistic people are nearly four times as likely as non-autistic people to have excess cerebrospinal fluid, according to a population-based study. Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders
• Big-data efforts to study autism genetics can build scientific knowledge and help people understand the subtleties of their own condition, writes Wendy Chung, director of clinical research at the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative; the initiative, like Spectrum, is funded by the Simons Foundation. Scientific American
• Autistic children tend to have lower levels of Streptococcus and Biofidobacterium in their gut microbiota than do their non-autistic peers. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

Science and society

• The editors of Nature call on scientists to push the conversation about evidence-based health disparities toward actionable solutions. Nature
• Joshua Gordon, director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, highlights challenges for autistic individuals and families during the coronavirus pandemic and discusses how research might help. NIMH.org
• Black and Hispanic people are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math sectors of the U.S. workforce, with few gains made since 2016. Nature
• Christine Petit and Christopher Walsh have received this year’s Gruber Neuroscience Prize, in recognition of their work on genetics and molecular mechanisms of neurodevelopmental disorders. Gruber Foundation