A blood pressure drug called bumetanide may shield the brain from the effects of severe seizures early in life.

Mice missing PTEN, a strong autism candidate gene, in a subtype of inhibitory neurons in one part of the brain show signaling abnormalities and social deficits. Researchers presented the unpublished work yesterday at the 2014 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Neurons derived from the skin cells of boys with Rett syndrome can help screen potential treatments for the disorder, suggest unpublished results presented yesterday at the 2014 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Mice modeling autism have trouble integrating different kinds of sensory information such as sight, sound and touch. A study published 31 July in Neuron reports that an imbalance between signals that calm neurons and those that excite them leads to these sensory problems.

Deleting MeCP2 from a subset of neurons that mediate inhibitory signals recapitulates many of the symptoms of Rett syndrome in mice. Conversely, expressing the gene only in that subset, but not in the rest of the brain, protects the mice from some of those same symptoms. The results were published last week in Nature Neuroscience.

The equivalent of one-tenth of a single pill of the anxiety drug clonazepam alleviates many autism-like behaviors in a mouse model of the disorder, according to a study published 19 March in Neuron.

Long pieces of RNA that do not code for protein have diverse and important roles in the cell and may contribute to autism risk, say Nikolaos Mellios and Mriganka Sur.

In utero exposure to the epilepsy drug valproic acid, which ups the risk of autism, may alter the composition of gut bacteria in rodents, according a study published 11 December in Brain Behavior and Immunity.

A commercially available line of neurons generated from induced stem cells would serve as a good control for autism research, according to a study published 16 January in Psychopharmacology.

The blood pressure drug bumetanide normalizes a deficit in brain activity in two rodent models of autism, according to a study published last week in Science. The study hints at a mechanism underlying the drug’s benefits for people with autism.