Using a sensitive new imaging molecule, researchers can watch neurons in the larval zebrafish brain spring into action when the fish sees a potential meal, according to a study published 29 January in Current Biology.
People with autism are adept at detecting whether two items appear on a screen simultaneously or close together in time, according to a study published 14 December in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
To focus the search for environmental risk factors in autism, we should look for chemicals that influence the molecular pathways associated with candidate risk genes, say Pamela Lein and Marianna Stamou.
A boy with autism lacks one copy of SHANK2 and has a duplication of CHRNA7, two genes that have been linked together to autism risk, according to a case study published 25 January in Clinical Genetics.
In 2003, John Rubenstein and Michael Merzenich first described the theory, now popular in autism, that the disorder reflects an imbalance between excitation and inhibition in the brain. Takao K. Hensch and Parizad M. Bilimoria review the paper and its impact on the field.
Women who have high levels of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation, early in their pregnancies are at increased risk of having children with autism, reports a study published 22 January in Molecular Psychiatry.
Watch the complete replay of Vikaas Sohal’s webinar on abnormal neural circuits in autism. Submit your own follow-up questions.
A new map highlighting brain circuits finds that regions involved in synthesizing information tend to vary more among people than those that govern sensory and motor functions.
People with autism who inhaled regular doses of the hormone oxytocin were better at recognizing others’ emotions and reported a higher quality of life than those who took a placebo, according to a small study published 5 December in Molecular Autism.
Connections between neighboring groups of brain cells are weaker in individuals with autism than in controls, according to a report published 14 January in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.