As May kicks off, we round up tweets about new appointments, FMRP and Alzheimer’s disease, disparities in autism diagnoses, and the power of genomics.

Here is a roundup of news and research for the week of 25 April.

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

This month’s newsletter looks at a decline in well-child visits during the coronavirus pandemic, the autism-cancer connection and the sizeable fraction of autistic children who live in poverty.

A new study is the first to link social, repetitive and motor behaviors to mutations in BMAL1, which regulates the body’s circadian rhythms.

By coupling the tool — called SLEAP — with optogenetics, researchers can determine the neural circuits underlying social behaviors.

Interneurons that fail to propagate electrical signals in mice that model Dravet syndrome may cause the animals, like people with the autism-linked condition, to die suddenly.

Previous Spectrum reporting called out this paper and several others — all on unrelated subjects — that mysteriously cite autism papers.

This week’s newsletter looks at new paper alerts about neocortical development, double empathy and predicting ‘super responders,’ plus queries for the science Twitterverse.

Here is a roundup of news and research for the week of 18 April.