An artificial-intelligence algorithm designed to analyze behavior has learned to recognize six genetic disorders associated with autism, according to a report published 11 February in Molecular Autism. The algorithm could be used to hone the search for autism’s genetic underpinnings.

Spontaneous and rare mutations, particularly in genes related to networks that regulate neuronal connections, contribute a small but significant proportion of the risk for schizophrenia, report two large studies published online 22 January in Nature.

Results from four studies published in the past year point to a role for the cerebellum in autism-related behaviors.

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.

A packed week of research at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego brought a flurry of breaking news and a creative combination of emerging research tools.

A new online database lists the likely RNA-binding sites of more than 8,000 proteins from 289 species. Researchers debuted the resource in the 11 July issue of Nature.

Although thousands of candidate genes are linked to autism, many function together in just a few common pathways, according to a network analysis published in the June issue of PLoS Genetics. 

A new network analysis of autism genes, published 11 June in Translational Psychiatry, highlights both the pitfalls and the promise of the approach, says Alan Packer.
 

RORA, an autism candidate gene, encodes a protein that binds more than 2,500 other genes and alters the expression of some of those genes, according to a study published 22 May in Molecular Autism.

It is possible to discover relationships between autism genes simply by reanalyzing existing datasets, says Alan Packer.