A variety of animal models can help researchers better address human-specific questions in neurological disorders such as autism, says Theresa Lee, who has used exotic animal models to study circadian rhythms.

The gene-environment interactions that are thought to contribute to many cases of autism can now be explored in a mouse model, according to a poster presented Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

A combination approach may hold promise for treating repetitive motor behaviors, such as those seen in people with autism, according to research presented yesterday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

Infection early in pregnancy is more harmful to the fetus than at later stages, triggering brain and behavioral changes in the offspring similar to those seen in people with schizophrenia, according to two mouse studies published in October. A third study suggests that exercise can mitigate some of these effects.

Mice with social behavior deficits reminiscent of autism are friendlier when raised alongside a highly social mouse strain.

SHANK1 — a member of a family of proteins linked to autism — does not cause autism-like social deficits when mutated in mice, according to a study published online in September in Brain Research.

A mouse model of Williams syndrome pinpoints a genetic region associated with the social behavior seen in the disorder, and may also yield insights into autism, says researcher Uta Francke, professor emeritus of genetics at Stanford University.

A new mouse model of Angelman syndrome that knocks out a large stretch of a key chromosome is clarifying some of the molecular mechanisms underlying the more severe forms of the disorder.

A point mutation in the autism-linked protein neuroligin-3 (NLGN3), seen in individuals with autism, causes the protein to misfold and localize to the wrong site in the cell, according to a study published in September in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Two new studies provide clues that may explain sex differences in autism prevalence. Italian researchers have found that injecting estrogen into the brains of young male mice reverses some of the structural and behavioral changes associated with low levels of reelin — a brain protein that has been previously implicated in autism — and the effects endure into adulthood.