Roughly one-quarter of individuals with Dravet syndrome, a syndromic form of epilepsy that starts in infancy, also have autism, according to a study published 25 May in Epilepsy and Behavior.
A new study pinpoints an autism hotspot in an information technology-rich region in the Netherlands.
Developmental disorders increased by 17 percent between 1997 and 2008 in the U.S, according to a report published 6 June. Is this cause for alarm, or a sign that we are at last assessing the true rate for these disorders?
A large population survey in England finds many adults with undiagnosed autism, bringing the disorder’s prevalence in adults to 1 in 100, approximately the same rate as in children, according to a report in May in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
Large studies on the epidemiology and genetics of epilepsy and autism have uncovered commonalities between the two disorders. But scientists are only beginning to untangle the biological roots of the overlap.
People who have severe gastrointestinal problems during childhood are no more likely to be on the autism spectrum than are healthy controls, a study reported 21 March in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology.
The first comprehensive autism study in South Korea has found that the prevalence of the disorder is more than double the number in the United States.
Two large studies published in the past two months have found that traits linked to autism are widely distributed in the general population. Although about 1 in 100 children is diagnosed with autism, up to 30 percent of people may have at least one of the traits associated with the disorder.
A child in Australia is more likely to have autism if he or she is the first-born, is born to a woman who is older than 40 years, or belongs to a family of higher socio-economic status, according to a study published in March in PLoS One.
An autism-associated gene variant of glyoxalase 1, or GLO1, leads to the buildup of a compound that is toxic to neurons, according to a study published 12 April in Autism Research.