Many children with autism have a range of motor issues — such as head lag, floppy arms and difficulty sitting up — beginning in the first few months of life, according to an emerging body of work.

A technique for detecting gene expression that detects short RNA messages is better suited than traditional methods for analyzing postmortem brain tissue, according to a study published 10 September in BMC Genomics.

Adults with autism are more likely than controls to have certain chronic health conditions, such as high cholesterol, but are less likely to treat these with prescription drugs.

Today marks the second annual Autistics Speaking Day, when people turn to social networks to raise autism awareness.

Postmortem brains from adults with autism have lower-than-normal levels of the fragile X mental retardation protein, which is missing in individuals with fragile X syndrome.

Autism prevalence is five times higher in young adults born weighing 2,000 grams or less compared with controls, according to a study published 17 October in Pediatrics.

A well-studied mouse model of autism has a smaller-than-normal volume in several autism-associated brain regions.

A five-minute online questionnaire can diagnose autism with as much accuracy as the so-called gold standard diagnostic tests, according to unpublished findings presented Tuesday at the Autism Consortium 2011 symposium in Boston.

Researchers have defined anatomical boundaries that minimize errors in brain-imaging measures of the amygdala, a region involved in emotion processing.

A massive association study links five new genetic regions to schizophrenia and implicates MIR137, a regulatory RNA that plays a role in neuron development, in the disorder.