Brain scans of hundreds of infants suggest that up to 80 percent of those with autism have unusual amounts of cerebrospinal fluid. Researchers are studying how this might contribute to the condition.

The NIH neurologist talks about her research, her family and how mental health labels can be limiting.

Next-generation trackers could realize a long-standing research dream: conducting sleep studies in large numbers of autistic people.

The treatment eases the animals’ sleep troubles, suggesting it has clinically meaningful effects beyond what was thought to be a critical window in early life.

Memories from Diering’s life trace the rising star’s scientific path from raising lizards as a child and later exploring home brewing to heading a lab that investigates memory, sleep disturbances and early development in animals with autism-linked mutations.

Rhythmic variations in the genes’ brain expression levels may help explain the sleep problems that often accompany the condition.

Compared with their unaffected siblings and unrelated controls, children with autism harbor more copy number variants in genes that govern the circadian cycle or are associated with insomnia.

Mice with a mutated copy of SHANK3 fail to establish normal sleep patterns during development.

This month, a commonly used emotion-recognition test doesn’t perform as expected — nor does a survey of past efforts to train autism specialists or a hunt for the sources of the sleep problems that often accompany the condition.

Even temporary bouts of too little non-REM sleep can lead to long-term changes in how the animals respond to certain social situations, new research suggests.