Excitatory and inhibitory neurons can derive from the same cellular source in the developing human brain, a new study suggests, overturning a 20-year-old hypothesis. Tomasz Nowakowski discusses the finding’s implications for autism research.

Infusions of the hormone oxytocin may make mice that model autism more social by normalizing their brain activity patterns.

Infection during pregnancy can tweak a mouse’s gut microbiome in ways that have lasting effects on her pups’ immune system and increase their chances of gut inflammation, a new study suggests.

A new viral variant can deliver genes exclusively to the brain, overcoming a key hurdle in treating neurological conditions using gene therapy.

Loss of the POGZ gene in mice makes certain genes inaccessible and prevents their expression.

Autism may involve different levels of RNA isoforms encoded by genes in the brain, which express many more proteins than previously thought.

Oxytocin, cemented in the popular imagination as the “love molecule,” could serve as a treatment for some autistic people who naturally have low levels of the hormone, researchers say.

Mice that express a fluorescent synaptic receptor reveal the interactions between neurons in unprecedented detail.

The investigational drug arbaclofen makes autistic people’s brains respond to a visual task more like non-autistic people’s brains do.

As 2021 comes to a close, Spectrum recaps some of the biggest trends in autism science this year: studies of sex differences, noncoding regions of the genome and points of convergence, as well as efforts to improve screening and participatory research.