On 28 September, Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, spoke about goals for developing new drugs for autism — and the barriers researchers may encounter.

The finding that MDMA and an experimental serotonin agonist increase sociability across six different model mice suggests that disparate autism-linked mutations converge on the same underlying pathways.

Disparities in state services for autism are driving families to relocate. But not everyone can afford to move, and others find that their new home also has faults.

Neurons in mice with an autism-linked mutation sprout extraneous protrusions, an overgrowth accompanied by above-average motor learning. Inhibiting a cell signaling pathway reverses the effect.

Roughly 30 percent of people with autism plus another condition, such as anxiety, are prescribed three or more psychotropic medicines. And that mix frequently changes from year to year.

Over the course of a career spanning more than three decades, Huda Zoghbi has won almost every major biology and neuroscience research award that exists. More than 20 years since she discovered the gene behind Rett syndrome, she remains laser focused on unlocking the condition’s secrets and finding effective treatments.

The link between autism and prenatal exposure to an immune response may involve altered levels of immune cells, according to a new study.

Methods that selectively increase levels of the Rett protein make for safer and more effective treatment strategies, some researchers say.

As cannabis prohibition slowly lifts in the United States, scientists and families in the autism community are increasingly turning to the drug and its constituent compounds to ease autism-related difficulties, including seizures and irritability.

Investigational drugs that inhibit an overactive enzyme could partially normalize how brain cells mature in boys with fragile X syndrome.