Researchers have developed functional magnetic imaging devices that are optimized to fit children’s heads, according to a study published in the December issue of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. These tools increase the quality of the data and deter head motion, which research suggests can lead to spurious results.

Twin brothers who have autism carry a non-inherited duplication that overlaps with 16p11.2, a chromosomal region that has been associated with autism. Their brother, who also has autism, has a nearby deletion within 16p11.2, according to a study published 11 January in the European Journal of Human Genetics.

Foreign-language translations of autism screening and diagnostic instruments are proliferating, but there is little research evaluating how well they work. Validation is necessary not only to ensure that children who have autism get the services they need, but also to accurately measure the disorder’s prevalence in different countries, researchers say.

Brain imaging studies of people with autism show that specific areas respond more strongly to song than do those of controls. The opposite is true when listening to speech.

The likelihood of being diagnosed with autism has increased for children born each year since 1992, especially for individuals at the higher-functioning end of the autism spectrum, reports a study published 7 December in The International Journal of Epidemiology.

The development of white matter tracts, the nerve bundles that join one brain region to another, is different in babies who go on to develop autism compared with those who do not, according to a study published 17 February in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Genes implicated in Tourette syndrome overlap with those involved in autism, according to an analysis of rare DNA duplications and deletions in people with the syndrome, published in the March issue of Biological Psychiatry.

Two genes may be responsible for autism symptoms in mice with extra copies of the Rett syndrome gene, according to a study published 8 January in Nature Genetics.

By screening the genomes of hundreds of people with autism and analyzing the effects of newly identified mutations in cultured neurons, researchers have clarified the disorder’s link to the SHANK2 gene.

Mice engineered to carry a Rett syndrome mutation only in neurons are prone to an irregular heartbeat that can lead to sudden death, according to a study published 14 December in Science Translational Medicine.