Science & Society

A panel of heavyweights from pharmaceutical companies and funding organizations painted a pessimistic picture for the future of autism drugs.

We’re headed to Washington, D.C. for the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, and hope to make your lives a little bit easier by reporting on what matters to you.

Two studies published in the past month highlight the challenges in balancing the accuracy of autism diagnosis with cost-effectiveness and speed.

In a study of people missing an autism-linked region on chromosome 22, researchers have found that the larger the deletion, the more likely the individual is to have severe symptoms, from motor and speech delays to a large head and fleshy hands.

A technique for detecting gene expression that detects short RNA messages is better suited than traditional methods for analyzing postmortem brain tissue, according to a study published 10 September in BMC Genomics.

A five-minute online questionnaire can diagnose autism with as much accuracy as the so-called gold standard diagnostic tests, according to unpublished findings presented Tuesday at the Autism Consortium 2011 symposium in Boston.