A small pilot study suggests that the drug propranolol, typically used to treat hypertension and anxiety, enhances functional connectivity between brain regions and improves verbal fluency, according to research presented Saturday at the 2012 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans.

Temple Grandin, perhaps the world’s most famous person with autism, has exceptional nonverbal intelligence and spatial memory, and her brain has a host of structural and functional differences compared with the brains of controls, according to a presentation Saturday at the 2012 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans.

Astrocytes, star-shaped brain cells that support neurons, may be needed for mice to learn motor skills, according to unpublished research presented Saturday at the 2012 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans.

Star-shaped cells in the brain wrap themselves around synapses, the junctions between neurons, and influence their development. In a video interview Saturday at the 2012 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in New Orleans, Ben Barres discusses the possible role of astrocytes in autism.

After nine long years, the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting is returning to New Orleans. And SFARI.org’s reporters are ready to deliver the best advances in autism research that emerge.

Mice that model Angelman syndrome or have a duplication of the 15q11-13 chromosomal region have aberrant brain levels of the chemical messenger serotonin, according to a study published 16 August in PLoS One.

The so-called ‘spiny mouse’ species has a gestational period twice as long as that of typical laboratory mice. This makes them good models for studying the link between prenatal exposure and autism risk, according to a study published 29 August in Brain, Behavior and Immunity.

RNA editing, which creates multiple forms of a protein, is common among proteins involved in neuronal signaling, and may be abnormal in people with autism, according to a study published 7 August in Molecular Psychiatry.

The nonprofit Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle plans to make neurons from stem cells derived from people with a number of different disorders. The resource, described 25 September at a conference in New York, will be available to all scientists.

Deleting an enzyme that regulates protein synthesis reverses some of the molecular and behavioral deficits in a mouse model of fragile X syndrome, according to research published 2 October in Neuron.