Two children with Asperger syndrome have disruptions in the PARK2 gene — one child has a duplication in the gene whereas the other has a deletion — according to a study published in February in the American Journal of Medical Genetics.

In the new diagnostic manual for psychiatric disorders, Asperger syndrome will be folded into autism spectrum disorder. Francesca Happé, a member of the committee that made the recommendation, explains the rationale behind the decision.

A new study shows that just a little bit of testosterone administered under the tongue can lower a woman’s skills at interpreting another person’s emotional state — especially if she has been exposed to high levels of testosterone in utero.

The new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) won’t be published for another two years, but changes proposed to the diagnostic criteria for autism are already sparking heated debate.

High-functioning adults with autism pass false belief tests with ease, but struggle with moral judgment in real-life situations.

A genome-wide association study has identified risk factors for Asperger syndrome, some of which overlap with chromosomal regions implicated in autism, according to a study in the December issue of Autism Research.

Autism is popularly viewed as a disorder of childhood, not old age, but that doesn’t mean senior citizens are unaffected.

Teenagers with autism are less efficient at rapidly shifting their eye gaze — an indicator of motor ability — compared with either typically developing controls or adolescents with Asperger syndrome, according to a study published in November in Cerebellum.

Parents and siblings of people with autism have abnormal eye movements and score higher on tests evaluating traits associated with the disorder.

Three articles published in the past few weeks show that diagnostic categories marked off neatly on the page often bleed together messily in the clinic.