Scientists are changing their minds about the role of microglia, the brain’s strongest and most agile soldiers against damage and infection. In healthy brains, microglia help build and eliminate synapses, the junctions between neurons, according to a study published 2 November in PLoS Biology.
Two independent groups have created mice that have deletions or duplications in a large section of chromosome 16. Each team has produced an animal with a different set of features, some of which — such as large head size and repetitive behaviors — are reminiscent of people with autism.
An analysis of brain scans correctly distinguishes between people with autism and controls more than 90 percent of the time, according to a study published today in Autism Research.
The National Database for Autism Research (NDAR), created by the National Institutes of Health to ease data sharing among autism researchers, has released the first batch of data on more than 10,000 participants enrolled in federally funded autism research studies.
A variant of the autism risk gene CNTNAP2 may alter the brain to emphasize connections between nearby regions and diminish those between more distant ones, according to a study published 3 November in Science Translational Medicine.
The parts of the brain that help us pay attention to some things and not others have specialized regions for different senses, such as sight and sound, according to a paper published online in November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Chinese researchers have developed a new imaging system, called micro-optical sectioning tomography or MOST, to generate a three-dimensional image of neurons in a whole mouse brain.
Areas of the brain that are active when people are daydreaming or sleeping, and quiet when they are engaged in a task, are imperfectly synchronized in people with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, researchers say.
Children with autism have an imbalance of excitation and inhibition in the brain, according to the first study to measure synchrony between brain networks using magnetoencephalography (MEG). The findings were presented Wednesday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
Important language areas in the brain don’t show the expected patterns of connectivity when people with autism listen to speech, suggests a poster presented Monday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.