Swiss biotech Stalicla hopes to bring precision medicine to autism. Experts praise efforts to identify autism subgroups, but evidence to support the company’s claims has yet to be seen.

Among people who carry the fragile X premutation, about 14 percent of boys and 5 percent of girls meet the criteria for autism, but the ‘broad autism phenotype’ may be far more common.

The loss of CHD8, a top autism gene, speeds up the production of certain neurons and leads to overgrowth in spheres of cultured brain cells.

Autistic children’s traits track with subtle, autism-like behaviors in their mothers; women with these traits may also carry a genetic predisposition to the condition.

Children who have autistic older siblings have bigger neural responses than controls do in the brain networks that process faces.

The relatives of autistic people often have mild traits of the condition. Studying these family members could broaden our understanding of autism.

Siblings of children with autism have motor difficulties similar to those in autistic children, but milder.

The ability to identify human-like movements is rooted in genetics — and may share those origins with autism traits.

Identical twins, who have virtually the same genetic material, show highly similar patterns of eye movements when looking at faces, suggesting that social gaze is hardwired.

Blocking an enzyme involved in learning and memory corrects brain abnormalities and improves memory in fly and mouse models of fragile X syndrome.