The bundles of nerve fibers that connect two regions important for language are abnormal in the brains of children with autism, according to a study published 5 April in the American Journal of Neuroradiology.
Identifying genetic and other factors that protect children at risk of autism from developing the disorder could provide new avenues for treatment.
Social impairments in autism are likely a consequence of deficits in social motivation that start early in life and have profound developmental consequences, says psychologist Robert Schultz.
Autism and antisocial disorder are separate conditions, with distinct differences in underlying brain structure, according to a neuroimaging study of the general population. The results were published 4 April in The Journal of Neuroscience.
The largest brain imaging study ever performed has identified candidate genes that influence brain size and general intelligence, according to research published 15 April in Nature Genetics.
A ten-year initiative announced last month by the Allen Institute for Brain Science aims to catalog the development, structure and function of neural circuits in the brain at an unprecedented level of detail.
People with autism have diverse brain response to different textures, according to a study that measures the sensory difficulties associated with the disorder.
Children with autism have a smaller corpus callosum, a bundle of nerve fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain, compared with controls, and this difference persists over two years of development, according to a study published 18 February in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
Rather than a tangled bowl of spaghetti, the neural wiring in the brain is arranged in an orderly fashion, like a woven piece of cloth, according to research published today in the journal Science.
Age-related changes to the mirror neuron system — a pathway thought to be involved in empathy — are no different in individuals with autism compared with controls, according to a meta-analysis published 1 February in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. The results challenge previous reports that suggest deficits in the mirror neuron system diminish with age in individuals with autism.