Characterizing the brain’s network organization may help us understand autism, says Damien Fair.

The National Children’s Study, a decade-old effort to track children’s health from birth to age 21, is undergoing radical restructuring to cut costs. The streamlined version of the project has left scientists and autism advocacy groups concerned that the study will not provide the answers they had hoped.

A comparison of autism-like behaviors in nearly 10,000 pairs of fraternal twins suggests that girls are somehow protected from the disorder. The findings, published 19 February in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may partly explain why autism is four times more common in boys than girls.

To focus the search for environmental risk factors in autism, we should look for chemicals that influence the molecular pathways associated with candidate risk genes, say Pamela Lein and Marianna Stamou.

New Jersey’s autism rates, which are consistently higher than those of other U.S. states, add weight to the possibility of a true increase in autism prevalence, says Walter Zahorodny.

Maternal health seems to have little impact on autism risk, according to a study published 7 January in PLoS One. The more serious risk is for intellectual disability, which can often occur along with autism.

The availability of neighborhood resources, such as pediatricians and advocacy organizations, influences rates of autism diagnoses, according to research published 7 December in Social Science and Medicine.

Mitochondrial deficits may account for the range of symptoms and neurological deficits seen in autism and explain why it preferentially affects boys, says Douglas Wallace.

A newly discovered DNA modification may play a role in development and regulate the expression of genes linked to fragile X syndrome and autism, according to a study published 5 October in Human Molecular Genetics.

Researchers are digging into the myriad causes of autism to refine its definition and find elusive biological signatures.