The Brain

Administering a cholesterol drug alongside an antibiotic eases atypical behavior and restores the signaling balance in the brains of people with fragile X syndrome.

A cellular pathway that helps neurons grow and move during fetal development may drive the changes in head size in some autistic people.

An inexpensive, noninvasive method can track social brain development in infants in low-resource countries.

Experiences may shape the human brain by altering neurons that boost brain activity.

Triggering an immune defense in newborn male mice missing a copy of TSC2, a gene linked to autism, impairs the mice’s social memory.

Mice with an autism-linked deletion in chromosome 16 show abnormalities in their blood vessels and circulation.

Specialized neurons called chandelier cells, which dampen brain signals, make unusually few connections in the brains of people with autism.

Stimulating the vagus nerve may normalize the brain response to sound in a rat model of Rett syndrome. It may also improve rats’ behavioral response to certain speech sounds.

A tiny fraction of the connections between brain regions can identify an individual.

A small number of autism genes are located in fragile regions of the genome — those prone to breaking when cells copy DNA.