Researchers have for the first time mapped gene expression in the rhesus macaque brain from birth through adulthood. The atlas illuminates the expression patterns of genes likely to be important in autism.
By mapping the connections between autism genes, researchers are finding clues to the disorder’s origins. The key, they say, is to begin without bias.
The SHANK family of proteins, some of which are strong autism candidates, work together to facilitate brain signaling, according to unpublished results presented yesterday at the 2014 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
The motor problems seen in Rett syndrome may be the result of deficits in a reward pathway in the striatum, according to a study published 12 November in Brain Structure and Function.
Oxytocin, the infamous ‘love hormone,’ may attune the brains of people with autism to respond to social information such as facial expressions, researchers reported 2 December in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study boosts oxytocin’s promise for treating the social deficits seen in autism.
Infants later diagnosed with autism are slower to learn how to sit and stand and are less likely to spontaneously change positions than their typically developing peers, reports a study published 18 September in Infancy.
By mapping the brains of not 1 but 27 mouse models of autism, researchers are making sense of the widely divergent structural changes seen in autism brains, they reported Wednesday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
Researchers can shut down or trigger compulsive behaviors in mice by using light to target certain brain circuits, according to two studies published 7 June in Science.
Some song-related areas in the zebra finch brain and language areas in the human brain show strikingly similar patterns of gene expression, according to unpublished research presented Sunday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans.
In a video interview, Simon Fisher discusses what language genes such as FOXP2 can reveal about the nature of autism.