Charting the structure and function of the brain’s many circuits may unravel autism’s mysteries.
Infants who are later diagnosed with autism are less attentive to the presence of a person onscreen at 6 months of age than their typically developing peers are, according to a study published 14 January in Biological Psychiatry.
Researchers have cataloged thousands of DNA regions that may act as enhancers — regulating gene expression from afar — in the developing mouse and human brains, according to a study published 14 February in Cell.
Children who have autism and large heads may belong to different clinical subsets based on the ratio between their head size and height, according to a study published in the February issue of Autism Research.
In December, SFARI brought together a group of scientists studying the connection between microglia and autism. These scientists are trying to delineate the next steps for this emerging field. Join the conversation.
Loss of one copy of 22q11.2 — a chromosomal region linked to schizophrenia and autism — shifts the location of neurons that inhibit brain signals, according to a study published 6 November in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Using a sensitive new imaging molecule, researchers can watch neurons in the larval zebrafish brain spring into action when the fish sees a potential meal, according to a study published 29 January in Current Biology.
People with autism are adept at detecting whether two items appear on a screen simultaneously or close together in time, according to a study published 14 December in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
To focus the search for environmental risk factors in autism, we should look for chemicals that influence the molecular pathways associated with candidate risk genes, say Pamela Lein and Marianna Stamou.
A boy with autism lacks one copy of SHANK2 and has a duplication of CHRNA7, two genes that have been linked together to autism risk, according to a case study published 25 January in Clinical Genetics.
