Researchers have created a mouse carrying a deletion in SHANK3, an autism candidate gene, they reported yesterday in Nature. This is the second model of SHANK3 mutations but shows markedly more behavioral and brain defects compared with the first.
Four years after scientists devised a way to paint individual mouse neurons in different colors, two independent groups have adapted the technique for use in the fruit fly. Both papers, replete with stunning images of fly neurons, appeared 6 February in Nature Methods.
Children with autism show abnormally strong synchrony between deep and outer layers of the brain, according to a study published online 31 December in Biological Psychiatry.
The ‘intense world theory’ says autism stems from hyper-sensitive reactions to the world, allowing the individual to zoom in on tiny details, but ignore the bigger picture.
Using tricks of genetic engineering, researchers in Taiwan have created the first comprehensive map of the myriad neuronal connections in the fruit fly brain. The findings appeared 11 January in Current Biology.
Using tricks of genetic engineering, researchers in Taiwan have created the first comprehensive map of the myriad neuronal connections in the fruit fly brain. The findings appeared 11 January in Current Biology.
Over the next five years, dozens of researchers funded by the $40 million ‘NIH Human Connectome Project’ will map the circuits of the human brain, tracing neural pathways and learning how different regions work together in synchrony.
Scientists have debated the relationship between autism and schizophrenia for decades. A review published last month suggests they are two sides of the same neurobiological coin.
Areas of the brain that are active when people are daydreaming or sleeping, and quiet when they are engaged in a task, are imperfectly synchronized in people with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, researchers say.
People with autism have fewer Purkinje cells in a region of the cerebellum that has undergone rapid recent evolution, according to a postmortem study presented Tuesday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.