Rodent models that recapitulate the core features of autism often have additional traits, leading us to ask whether these traits are integral to autism, says Elisa Hill-Yardin.

Despite a sizable overlap in symptoms and medications, autism, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia each has a defining signature. The findings are based on an analysis of electronic medical records from California hospitals, published 16 August.

The most popular drugs prescribed for autism in some countries often have serious side effects or have not been vetted in robust clinical trials, finds a study published 5 September in Psychopharmacology.

Children with autism struggle to understand their own card-game strategies, suggesting that they learn differently than controls do, reports a study published 24 July in Autism Research.

Oxytocin may well have established its reputation as the ‘social hormone’ in the popular imagination, but it has no effect on symptoms in children with autism, according to a study published 26 July in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

A new study fans the flames of a link between autism and schizophrenia, finding that children with autism are at a three-fold greater risk of psychotic episodes in their teen years than their typically developing peers.