California might make vaccines mandatory, and religious figures may weigh in on the genetic engineering of embryos.

A new cell culture method allows researchers to easily transform skin cells into layered spheres of firing neurons.

An autism-linked mutation in the SHANK3 gene alters the protein skeleton of mouse neurons. Repairing the scaffold eases the animals’ social deficits.

Researchers have for the first time mapped gene expression in the rhesus macaque brain from birth through adulthood. The atlas illuminates the expression patterns of genes likely to be important in autism.

Children who are diagnosed with autism after drastically and suddenly losing cognitive abilities may actually have a distinct disorder, according to data presented yesterday at the 2015 International Meeting for Autism Research in Salt Lake City, Utah.

An autism-linked gene controls the number of neurons in the developing brain. Freda Miller and David Kaplan say the finding points to a new role for the gene in the early embryo.

Signals that relay sensations from nerves to the brain are abnormally strong in people with autism, a finding that may explain why some people with the disorder are overly sensitive to light, sound and touch.

Children missing a stretch of chromosome 16 known as 16p11.2 process sound a split second slower than typical children do. The findings suggest that genes encoded in the 16p11.2 region may underlie the hearing delay seen in some people with autism.

A cluster of neurons helps monkeys cooperate, and a human gene makes a mouse brain look like a person’s.

The little-studied autism gene ANKRD11 helps to package DNA in the nucleus and plays a critical role in the early growth and positioning of neurons.