Infection with swine flu in early pregnancy causes inflammation in the placenta, and raises the risk of schizophrenia and autism in the offspring, according to a study published in January in Neuropharmacology.

Six strains of mice lacking a gene associated with fragile X syndrome show radically different behaviors though they share the same mutation, researchers reported in January in Autism Research.

Two new studies of families carrying glitches on a region of chromosome 16, which has been strongly associated with autism, reveal the wide range of effects caused by the variant and narrow the list of possible culprit genes.

Copy number variations, or CNVs — duplications or deletions of DNA segments — can influence the expression of unrelated genes on the same chromosome, according to a study published in November in PLOS Biology.

Mice lacking one copy of a gene associated with Williams syndrome share the hyper-sociability of people with the disorder, according to a paper published online 3 December in Autism Research.

The neurons of people with Rett syndrome contain an overabundance of retrotransposons — DNA sequences that copy and insert themselves into new spots throughout the genome — during early development, according to a study published 18 November in Nature.

Inhibiting the ERK1/2 pathway — which regulates the synthesis of other proteins — can rescue some of the effects of fragile X syndrome, according to a study published 17 November in the Journal of Neuroscience. The ERK pathway could provide a novel target for fragile X therapies.

In a keynote lecture on Tuesday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego, Nat Heintz predicted that over the next ten years, scientists will piece together detailed molecular signatures of each of the hundreds of cell types in the mouse brain. After the talk, he sat down with SFARI on a sunny patio to discuss what this decade of advancements might mean for autism research.

The Allen Institute for Brain Science has released whole-genome expression data from one-and-a-half adult human brains, and is gathering information from samples at different stages of development, from four weeks after conception to adulthood. The data were described at poster sessions Saturday and Tuesday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

The brains of children with autism show differences in gene expression compared with those of healthy controls, especially in genes that control cell growth. Adults with autism also have aberrant gene expression, but in different pathways, researchers reported Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.