A new method that renders the brain transparent generates unprecedented views of long-range neuronal connections, researchers reported 10 April in Nature.

Prenatal exposure of rats to the epilepsy drug valproic acid leads to behavioral and brain features that resemble autism, in males more than in females, according to a study published in the March issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry.

To define appropriate social behavior for mice, which are often used as laboratory models of human social disorders, it may be best to ask the mice. This is the basis of a new assay for mouse social deficits, published 21 February in Autism Research.

Show an image of a neuron to NEMO, a new free software tool, and it will trace the neuron’s shape and detail the length, breadth and number of its branches, scientists who designed the software reported 14 February in Frontiers in Neuroinformatics.

A number of autism risk factors converge on one cellular pathway: abnormal remodeling of the cell’s structural systems through the signaling protein Rho, says SFARI’s associate director for research, Alan Packer.

Neurons from people with Timothy syndrome, and from mouse and rat models of the disorder, have defects in the growth of their branches, according to a study published 13 January in Nature Neuroscience.

A growing number of studies suggest connections between Alzheimer’s disease, fragile X syndrome and autism, which could point the way to potential treatments.

Researchers have cataloged thousands of DNA regions that may act as enhancers — regulating gene expression from afar — in the developing mouse and human brains, according to a study published 14 February in Cell.

In 2003, John Rubenstein and Michael Merzenich first described the theory, now popular in autism, that the disorder reflects an imbalance between excitation and inhibition in the brain. Takao K. Hensch and Parizad M. Bilimoria review the paper and its impact on the field.

Researchers have developed a technique that allows them to remove a functioning placenta from a pregnant mouse late in gestation, they reported 8 January in Nature Protocols.