A new study maps the many targets of the autism gene TBR1, but it’s just one small piece of a much bigger picture.

Fetal mice that have too many neurons grow to show social deficits and repetitive behaviors. The finding, reported 11 December in Cell Reports, debuts a mouse model of autism that’s based on a biological abnormality seen in some people with the disorder.

Researchers are taking a second look at dozens of autism candidate genes, sequencing them in thousands of individuals to bolster the evidence linking them to autism.

A group of scientists is using fast, accurate and minimally invasive measurement systems to revive the once-tedious trade of dysmorphology, or the study of unusual facial features, in autism.

Each child with autism is different from the next. One approach rapidly gaining momentum makes sense of this diversity by grouping children together based on their genetics, then looking for patterns in their symptoms. The long-term aim: personalized treatments for each subtype of autism.

Analyzing the sequences of more than 20,000 people, researchers have unearthed the largest and most robust list of autism genes so far, they reported today in Nature.

Many of the genes that have emerged as the strongest autism candidates have turned out to regulate the expression of hundreds, if not thousands, of other genes. Within these networks, scientists are homing in on pathways that underlie autism.

A new method of statistical analysis can predict whether a rare mutation identified in someone with autism has a meaningful association with the disorder or was found only by chance, researchers reported in the September issue of Nature Genetics.

Geneticist James Noonan explains how the complex function of CHD8, the leading candidate for autism risk, points to a way to unravel the mechanisms underlying autism.

CHD8, a gene that regulates the structure of DNA, is the closest thing so far to an ‘autism gene,’ suggests a study published today in Cell. People with mutations in this gene all have the same cluster of symptoms, including autism.