From funding decisions to scientific fraud, a wide range of societal factors shape autism research.
A $38.7 million project in the European Union — the largest single grant for autism research in the world — aims to bring together academic labs and pharmaceutical companies to speed the move from basic to clinical research.
Neuroscience funding has plateaued, so researchers need to squeeze every drop from existing data.
Long-term treatment with antipsychotic drugs and mood stabilizers can change the structure of the brain.
Combining functional magnetic resonance imaging of rat brains with a technique that uses light to detect neuronal activity can help researchers hone in on the source of the activity, according to a study published 6 May in Nature Methods.
Researchers have identified deletions in SHANK1 — the third member of a gene family that is closely linked to autism — in five men with the disorder, they reported 4 May in the American Journal of Human Genetics. This is the first study linking SHANK1 mutations to people with autism.
Researchers have created sponge-like assemblies of hundreds of thousands of short fragments of RNA, which can be used to dampen the expression of certain genes, according to a study published 26 February in Nature Materials.
Large-scale swapping of genetic material between chromosomes may play an important role in autism, according to a study published 27 April in Cell.
Postmortem brain tissue from people with autism shows differences in the expression of genes involved in a number of molecular pathways, including those that control cortical patterning, programmed cell death and differentiation, according to research published last month in PLoS Genetics.
Parents searching for a genetic diagnosis for their child with autism now have a new option: a test that analyzes 62 different genes linked to syndromic autism, meaning cases of the disorder caused by mutation of a single gene.
