Carrying a duplication of the 22q11.2 chromosomal region may protect against schizophrenia, suggests a study published 12 November in Molecular Psychiatry. This is the first evidence of a genetic region that lowers the risk of a disorder rather than increases it.
Mutations in a single gene in 15q11.13 — a chromosomal region linked to multiple neurological disorders — may increase the risk of autism, according a study published in November in Nature Genetics.
Brain regions that help people process grammar and remember the sounds of words are less active in children with autism than in controls, according to unpublished results presented Sunday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
The largest genetic analysis yet conducted of people lacking a brain structure called the corpus callosum shows that the condition shares many risk factors with autism. The study was published 3 October in PLoS Genetics.
Many people diagnosed with a set of rare disorders called RASopathies also have autism, but those symptoms often go untreated.
Children with autism learn to name objects and imitate others before they are able to engage others’ attention, a pattern opposite to that seen in typical development. They also lag behind their peers in social communication, according to a study published 6 August in Autism.
Many children with autism, and not just those on dairy- or gluten-free diets, don’t get enough calcium or vitamin D, says a study published in September.
Researchers have uncovered the mechanism by which a candidate drug for Angelman syndrome activates UBE3A, the gene that is silenced in the syndrome, according to a study published 20 August in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Neurons derived from individuals who carry extra copies of an autism-linked chromosomal region have gene expression patterns that are unexpectedly similar to those of neurons with deletions of the region. The unpublished findings were presented Thursday at the Dup15q Alliance Scientific Meeting in Sacramento, California.
To better understand and treat nonverbal autism, the field must paradoxically move beyond focusing on speech production, say many researchers. Emerging research suggests that seemingly unrelated issues such as motor skills and joint attention may instead be key.