Tune in for daily updates and reactions from attendees at the 2014 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

About 2 percent of people who have both autism and intellectual disability carry harmful mutations in SHANK3, a protein that helps organize the connections between neurons, according to a study published 4 September in PLoS Genetics.

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.

Children with autism have atypical patterns of epigenetic modifications — chemical tags on DNA that influence gene expression, suggests a study published 29 May in PLOS Genetics.

Proteins that help guide neurons to their correct destination in the brain may be involved in autism, says Christopher Cowan.

Many characteristics of Phelan-McDermid syndrome — an autism-linked disorder arising from abnormalities at the tip of chromosome 22q13 — change as individuals age.

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.

Postmortem brains from people with autism have abnormal patterns of chemical tags on SHANK3, one of the strongest candidate genes for autism, according to a study published 23 November in Human Molecular Genetics.

Different combinations of genes located in an autism-linked section of chromosome 22 may modulate various symptoms, such as speech problems, large head size and low muscle tone, researchers reported 17 October in Genetics in Medicine.

Mice with a duplication of SHANK3, a gene with strong links to autism, are hyperactive and manic, reports a study published 7 November in Nature.