The signaling imbalance theory holds that the brains of autistic people are hyper-excitable because of either excess neuronal activity or weak brakes on that activity.

Lattice-like structures that surround neurons may be overly abundant — or scarce — in brain regions of three autism mouse models.

Mice lacking one copy of a leading autism gene have hyperexcitable brains and problems with learning and memory.

Injecting a virus toting snippets of RNA into the rodent brain enables researchers to express genes in specific neuron types.

A woman with autism had to fight for her sterilization surgery, a mother’s tactics with her son on the spectrum generate controversy, and gifted students with autism have unique struggles.

A widely used treatment for anxiety can eliminate some of the cognitive and social problems seen in mice missing a copy of ARID1B, a gene associated with autism.

Drugs that block certain brain enzymes could help treat two conditions associated with autism.

Music therapy proves ineffective for autism, brain structures differ with 16p11.2 duplications and deletions, and mice missing NLGN3 may influence the sociability of their littermates.

Researchers have traced an unusual maternal behavior in female mice modeling Rett syndrome to a neural circuit that processes sound. They have also found a drug that reverses this behavior.