MeCP2, the protein mutated in Rett syndrome, is normally responsible for boosting the expression of a large number of genes. This finding, published 3 October in Cell Stem Cell, may explain why growth factors that promote protein production are able to reverse features of the syndrome in mice.

Skin cells taken from mice with an autism-linked mutation and transformed directly into neurons have the same properties as neurons from the brains of these mice. The study, published 8 October in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, validates an efficient technique to study disease-linked mutations.

Now that genetic studies have implicated several hundred genes in autism, researchers are turning their attention to where and when in the healthy young brain these genes are expressed. The first two studies to tackle these questions appear today in Cell.

People with autism show differences from controls in the levels of microRNAs, small noncoding bits of RNA, in the social and sound-processing parts of the brain. Unpublished results from the postmortem study were presented Wednesday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

The Allen Institute for Brain Science is mapping the complex projections of neurons throughout the mouse brain. They presented results from the first 1,400 brains on Tuesday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

MeCP2, the gene associated with Rett syndrome, has widely variable effects on mouse brains depending on the mutation it carries, according to unpublished results presented Tuesday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

Cells extracted from baby teeth, which fall out on their own, may be better suited than skin cells for making induced neurons to use in autism research, suggests a study published 3 October in PLoS One.

Researchers have created neurons from the skin cells of children with autism, according to an unpublished study presented Monday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego. These neurons show several distinct features, including elevated markers of inhibitory signaling.

Researchers have created software that can design customized molecular scissors to edit the genomes of living cells. The program, called TALENSeek, was presented in a poster Saturday afternoon at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

A gene’s length may influence its expression, and this has implications for autism, which tends to be linked to particularly long genes, says Mark Zylka.