The precious few long-term studies of autism have produced unique insight into the development and ultimate outcomes of the disorder. How can we encourage more of them?

We check in with the community about building more efficient bridges between families affected by autism and the scientists seeking its cure.

Conversations with researchers at the 2013 International Meeting for Autism Research in San Sebastián, Spain, raised provocative questions about the nature of autism. How do we make sense of its staggering heterogeneity, multiple genetic causes and widespread overlap with other disorders?

Watch the complete replay of Flora Vaccarino describing how to model brain development using induced pluripotent stem cells. Submit your own follow-up questions.

We checked in from the 2013 International Meeting for Autism Research with daily reactions from this year’s attendees.

A candidate drug for Angelman syndrome shows promise in activating the gene silenced in people with the disorder, and only that gene. Why doesn’t it unsilence other genes?

Online tools to collect data on children with autism provide an opportunity to expand sample sizes and reach a broader audience. But how far can these tools go in replacing traditional clinical evaluations?

Exome sequencing has produced a wealth of insight into the heritability of autism and identified a number of promising risk genes. But how much risk lies outside the exome?

In his Directors’ Column, Alan Packer points out how a number of autism risk genes act on a common cellular pathway regulated by a single protein. What other similar convergent paths might be hiding in the literature? Let’s go on a treasure hunt.

Growing evidence suggests that abnormal connectivity in the brain underlies autism, but conflicting interpretations persist about where and how the dysfunction occurs. How do we investigate the underlying mechanisms of this theory?