Shifts in diagnostic criteria have only added to the condition’s bedeviling heterogeneity, an analysis of smiling, sitting, walking and other early milestones in more than 17,000 autistic children reveals.

People’s brains have a larger network of inhibitory interneurons than mouse brains do, according to a new study. Changes to that network could contribute to autism or other conditions, says lead investigator Moritz Helmstaedter.

About 15 percent of genes currently included in clinical genetic tests for autism or intellectual disability don’t have enough evidence to support their ties to the conditions, the panel found.

People who have ‘profound autism’ — those with severe intellectual disability, limited communication abilities or both — tend to be excluded from research. The Autism Science Foundation seeks to change that.

After the vasopressin antagonist balovaptan flopped in a late-stage clinical trial, Suma Jacob and her colleagues took stock of all the factors that might have complicated the results.

The principal investigator of the Autism Intervention Research Network on Physical Health wants to encourage more researchers to study physical health issues in autistic children and adults.

For decades, many researchers who study nonhuman primates kept quiet about their work, concerned about the extreme actions taken by some animal welfare activists. But a growing number are speaking more openly about the importance of their work in an attempt to take back the narrative.

Scientists have at last filled in the missing gaps — an advance likely to inform every aspect of autism genetics research, Eichler says.

Genetics research has largely failed to generate concrete benefits for autistic people, and its values and goals are due for reassessment, Tabor says.

The temporary organ may hold clues about the origins of autism and brain development, Anna Penn says — if only researchers would study it.