Mice modeling autism have trouble integrating different kinds of sensory information such as sight, sound and touch. A study published 31 July in Neuron reports that an imbalance between signals that calm neurons and those that excite them leads to these sensory problems.

By treating the medical complications that accompany Rett syndrome, women with the disorder are living longer than ever before, says Alan Percy. 

There are no available medications for treating autism’s core symptoms, but there are several candidates in clinical trials. Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele describes the factors researchers must take into account when developing drugs for the disorder.

A teenage girl with Rett syndrome has a mutation in WFR45, a gene that is mutated in people who abruptly lose motor and mental skills in adulthood, according to a study published 13 March in the Journal of Human Genetics.

The protein underlying Rett syndrome exists in two different forms that differ in their distribution throughout the brain, reports a study published 3 March in PLoS One.

Having one too many copies of MeCP2, the Rett syndrome gene, may block the growth of neuronal branches by interfering with the production of small pieces of RNA, according to a study published 10 March in Developmental Cell.

Deleting MeCP2 from a subset of neurons that mediate inhibitory signals recapitulates many of the symptoms of Rett syndrome in mice. Conversely, expressing the gene only in that subset, but not in the rest of the brain, protects the mice from some of those same symptoms. The results were published last week in Nature Neuroscience.

In the brains of people with autism, certain genes are suppressed by a chemical tag that increases binding to MeCP2, the protein implicated in Rett syndrome. The findings were published 21 January in Translational Psychiatry.

Researchers have created the first genetic monkey model of autism, they reported 6 March in Cell Stem Cell. The female monkey has a mutated version of the MeCP2 gene that causes Rett syndrome.

The equivalent of one-tenth of a single pill of the anxiety drug clonazepam alleviates many autism-like behaviors in a mouse model of the disorder, according to a study published 19 March in Neuron.