For nearly two decades, scientists have debated the relationship between language problems, seen in about half of children with autism, and another disorder called specific language impairment. Three papers published in the past several months attempt to resolve this debate, but their findings suggest that it is far from settled.

Some studies have suggested that people with autism have deficits in executive function — a set of complex mental processes involved in everyday life. But these results may instead reflect their difficulties imagining what other people are thinking, according to a provocative new hypothesis.

The protein missing in people with fragile X syndrome may activate the expression of a signaling protein dubbed NOS1 during prenatal development of brain regions involved in language and social skills, according to a study published 11 May in Cell.

Understanding the function of neuronal circuits, specifically microcircuits in the prefrontal cortex and elsewhere in the brain, will play a major role in translating research findings into new autism treatments, says Vikaas Sohal.

FMRP, the protein missing in people with fragile X syndrome, localizes in clusters of proteins at neuronal junctions that relay sensory and motor information, according to a study published 23 April in The Journal of Comparative Neurology.

Two new postmortem studies show that microglia, which protect the brain from invaders, are denser and more concentrated around neurons in the brains of individuals with autism than in those of controls.

Postmortem brain tissue from people with autism shows differences in the expression of genes involved in a number of molecular pathways, including those that control cortical patterning, programmed cell death and differentiation, according to research published last month in PLoS Genetics.

A ten-year initiative announced last month by the Allen Institute for Brain Science aims to catalog the development, structure and function of neural circuits in the brain at an unprecedented level of detail.

Neurons lacking PTEN, an autism-associated gene also involved in cancer, are hyperconnected to both near and distant brain cells, according to a study published 1 February in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Rather than a tangled bowl of spaghetti, the neural wiring in the brain is arranged in an orderly fashion, like a woven piece of cloth, according to research published today in the journal Science.