The brains of people with autism have abnormally dense and stubby dendritic spines, the neuronal projections that receive electrical signals, according to data presented Monday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
People with autism have structural differences in the temporal cortex — a brain region involved in sound and language processing — compared with controls, according to a postmortem study presented Monday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
Counting neurons in the brains of people with autism who died young might strike some people as grisly or tedious. But Eric Courchesne sees it is the key to understanding why people with autism experience rapid overgrowth of certain brain regions early in life.
Early data suggest that it is possible to identify autism by looking at gene expression in the blood. But it’s going to take more work to prove it.
People with autism show differences in the levels of various gene products compared with their unaffected siblings, according to a study published online in September in Brain Research.
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.
A study of postmortem brain tissue shows that RPP25, a gene on the autism-linked 15q22-26 chromosomal region, is expressed differently in the brains of people with the disorder. This is the first time this gene has been implicated in autism.
A study of postmortem tissue shows that microglia, cells that provide immune protection to the brain, are altered in the brains of individuals with autism.
The protein missing in fragile X syndrome is necessary for the proper development of neural stem cells — self-renewing cells that can differentiate into more specialized types, including neurons — according to a paper published in the August issue of Human Molecular Genetics.
Scientists have for the first time captured a dynamic picture of brain defects in young mouse models of fragile X syndrome. The findings appeared in June in the Journal of Neuroscience.