Postmortem brains from individuals with autism have abnormal levels of long non-coding RNAs, which regulate the expression of genes, according to a study published 5 September in the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience.
Life for most New Yorkers is getting back to normal after the unprecedented destruction caused last week by Hurricane Sandy, but researchers at New York University face a painful and painstaking recovery.
Researchers are assembling a virtual reconstruction of the brain by piecing together simulations of thousands of neurons, they reported 16 October in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They used this model to show that most junctions between neurons form randomly and not as the result of chemical signals.
Family members of individuals with autism process faces and scenes differently than do controls, according to two new studies, one of them published in October. This suggests that visual processing may be an autism endophenotype — a measurable symptom that represents part of the genetic risk of a disorder.
Papers that are turned down by one journal and end up being published by another are cited significantly more often than papers accepted by the first-choice journal, according to an analysis published 12 October in Science.
Two new case studies highlight how complex rearrangements of chromosome 15 can lead to different disorders, including autism and the related Prader-Willi syndrome.
Contradicting a popular hypothesis in autism, a new study from Australia has found no connection between autism and bacteria in the gut. The analysis, published 20 September in the journal Autism Research, reports that the gastrointestinal systems of children with autism harbor the same bacteria as those of their typically developing siblings.
Girls with Asperger syndrome are diagnosed, on average, two years later than boys, and the delay is even worse among adults with classic autism, according to a large study in the Netherlands published 22 September in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
The families of children with specific language impairment do not have a history of autism, according to a study published 28 August in Genes, Brain and Behavior. The results bolster the theory that the two disorders have independent risk factors.
Flooding from Hurricane Sandy has destroyed a major rodent colony at New York University. But most of the strains are also housed elsewhere, so researchers should be able to rebuild their collections.