Researchers at the Society for Neuroscience today described a new test for animal behavior that doesn’t interfere with normal mouse behavior, doesn’t require human interaction, and makes it simple to take long-term measurements: the ‘licking testʼ.

As many as one in every three people with autism develop a macrocephalus, or extremely enlarged head, at some point in their lives, an observation largely accepted as fact. But how or why this happens ― and whether it happens consistently enough to be useful in diagnosing autism ― remains contentious.