Cortical organoids that contain non-neuronal brain cells called microglia may reflect human neurodevelopment more faithfully than those that don’t.

The work fills in gaps about how synapses change before and after birth — essential knowledge for understanding whether synapse development differs in autism.

These short reports from Spectrum journalists highlight some of the autism-related findings that caught our attention at the meeting this past week.

Activating certain receptors in the amygdala — a treatment that runs counter to a leading theory of what causes the condition — can reverse some traits in rats.

Animal models of autism rooted in exposure to maternal antibodies hint at different mechanisms.

Dysfunctional circuits and a rogue sodium channel in the brainstem may explain the disordered breathing pattern seen in children with Pitt-Hopkins syndrome, a form of autism.

Audrey Brumback riffs about volunteering in Mexico, having a lab next door to her husband’s and why she sometimes cries at work.

Compared with a previous mouse strain, a new model better reflects some of the difficulties that people with a rare autism-related syndrome experience, and may help identify biomarkers of the syndrome.

The algorithm estimates a child’s likelihood of having autism from patterns of co-occurring conditions in electronic health records, outperforming a widely used screening test.

Social memory, which may be altered in autism, depends on serotonin-sensitive neurons that send signals from the medial septum to the hippocampus.