Drugs such as LSD act primarily on the serotonin system, which is implicated in autism — and some autistic people who experiment with psychoactive compounds report enhanced social connections, among other benefits. But researchers have more questions than answers.

Increased white-matter maturation tracks with stronger language abilities later in childhood, but the relationship with cortical thickness is less clear.

The size of the cerebral cortex seems to depend on when neural progenitor cells multiply or differentiate into glial cells and neurons.

The new resource is the first to chart human brain development from before birth to 100 years of age.

Animals with different autism-linked mutations share disruptions to the mTOR signaling pathway, pointing to a potential molecular mechanism for the atypical cerebellar development seen in some autistic people.

Having a genetic predisposition to inflammation is linked to structural changes in brain regions implicated in neurodevelopmental conditions.

A new longitudinal study paints a favorable picture of the outcomes for many autistic adults in the city of Yokohama.

The ‘projectome’ charts axonal pathways between individual cells in the prefrontal cortex, a brain region implicated in autism.

Interneurons that fail to propagate electrical signals in mice that model Dravet syndrome may cause the animals, like people with the autism-linked condition, to die suddenly.

The loss of CHD8, a top autism gene, speeds up the production of certain neurons and leads to overgrowth in spheres of cultured brain cells.