• Fifty-two Black scientists reflect on the meaning of Juneteenth as a U.S. holiday and the remaining structural issues that support racism and discrimination in the sciences. Cell
• Autistic children display less neural sensitivity to expressive faces than non-autistic children do, as measured by frequency-tagging electroencephalograms; oxytocin treatment does not alter their responses. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
• The typical expansion of neural progenitor cells doesn’t occur in brain organoids containing MECP2 mutations, a model of Rett syndrome. Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology
• After participating in a social-skills training program, parents of autistic children report feeling supported and understanding their children better. Autism
• The journal Nature has prohibited the use of images generated by artificial-intelligence technologies (unless the article is about AI specifically). Nature
• Alysson Muotri and his colleagues model aging in brain organoids by sending them into space to develop in very low gravity. Spectrum has previously covered Muotri’s work. The Scientist
• Mice prenatally exposed to valproic acid, which are often used as an autism model, display behavioral changes and lower levels of two synaptic proteins, NLGN1 and PSD-95. Brain Research
• Zebrafish have advantages over rodents as a model for studying gut-brain interactions in autism, according to a review article. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity
  

  Less rosy: Brain organoids with MeCP2 mutations (right) do not form neural rosettes as observed in wild-type organoids (left).

• Disentangling stigma from illness — nobody is bad or lesser because they have a disease or condition — may foster increased acceptance of people with autism or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and get them the support they need, writes psychiatrist Daniel Morehead. Psychiatric Times
• The prevalence of co-occurring attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism (without intellectual disability) varies widely across studies, from 2.6 to 95.5 percent. Journal of Attention Disorders
• Three brothers with a deletion in the chromosomal region 16p11.2, inherited from their mother, have dissimilar autism traits and body weights. Journal of Medical Genetics
• Combining genomics and transcriptomics, researchers have linked the SOX7 gene, which codes for a transcription factor, to autism, according to a preprint. bioRxiv

Cite this article: https://doi.org/10.53053/YKBH6029