Among the younger siblings of children with autism who do not have the disorder themselves, more than one-quarter show developmental delays at their first birthday, according to a study published in April.
When navigating a maze, rats move toward happy rodent sounds and away from those signaling alarm, according to a review published 4 February in the Journal of Neuroscience Methods. The method could be used to assay social behavior in rodent models of autism.
Babies later diagnosed with autism are slow to start babbling and do less of it once they get started than controls do, reports a study published 31 January in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
FOXP2, a language gene that is linked to autism, may regulate active connections between neurons by controlling the levels of a protein called SRPX2, according to a study published 22 November in Science.
A strain of bacteria that lives in some people’s guts alleviates obsessive behaviors, anxiety and other symptoms in mice that model autism, researchers report today in Cell. The finding supports the intriguing link between the gut, brain and behavior.
Guinea pigs have advantages over other rodent species commonly used to model disorders such as autism, according to preliminary research published Tuesday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
A new tracking system allows researchers to pinpoint which of four mice is ‘talking’ as they mingle freely in a cage. The setup, presented Tuesday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego, shows that male mice don’t do all the talking, as was previously thought.
A new test of mouse intelligence closely mimics the types of assays used with people and detects a subtle learning deficit reminiscent of one seen in teenagers with autism, according to findings presented Saturday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
Adult mice lacking the autism-linked gene SHANK2 emit fewer cries and do so at a lower pitch compared with controls, according to a study published 28 August in Behavioral Brain Research.
Mice that express elevated levels of an autism-linked gene in the nucleus of neurons show social and communication problems, according to unpublished research presented Thursday at the Dup15q Alliance Scientific Meeting in Sacramento, California.