Spectrum
Articles written for the GLP list the source as Genetic Literacy Project. All other articles were written for the sources noted with excerpts provided by the GLP.
Meet Grunya Sukhareva, the forgotten woman who defined autism
[In 1924,] a gifted young doctor, Grunya Efimovna Sukhareva, saw [a 12-year-old] boy. Caring and attentive, she observed him with ...
Understanding environmental risk factors for autism: What’s real and what’s not
Here, we explain why it is difficult to link autism to environmental factors, and what scientists know about how the ...
Tracking autism: ‘Recalibrated’ test may better reflect progression over time
A recalibrated version of a widely used test for autism may accurately reflect autistic children’s development as they grow and ...
Severe autism linked to lower serotonin levels in mothers
Women whose children are severely autistic have lower serotonin levels than do those whose children have mild or moderate autism ...
Autism and chemical messenger receptors: Study challenges popular theory
New results from brain scans of adults with autism are at odds with the popular theory that autism involves weak ...
‘In someone else’s shoes’: How virtual reality is altering autism research, treatment
For more than two decades, scientists have experimented with [virtual reality] to set up controlled scenarios to study autistic traits. At the ...
Gene therapy for autism? Rare Angelman syndrome could answer key questions
[T]he success of genetic therapies [for autism] is not guaranteed. Even if disrupted genes can be replaced, repaired or otherwise ...
Tracing the impact of genetics on autism
Autism is more heritable than anorexia, alcohol dependence, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder, according to an analysis of data from nearly ...
Why do siblings of children with autism also have social problems?
Even typical siblings of children with autism tend to struggle with anxiety, depression and social difficulties, according to a large ...
How brain scans of sleeping mice could help identify various types of autism in humans
Autism features vary considerably from one person to the next. One of the biggest challenges in autism research is to ...
Autism, intellectual delay could be result of spontaneous mutations
Genetic variants across the genome contribute to about 8 percent of the risk for certain developmental conditions — much more ...
Autism more closely linked an inability to ‘read’ other people than inflexible thinking and lack of self-control
For more than 30 years, scientists have debated which of two cognitive abilities, theory of mind and executive function, is ...
Looking for a connection between autism and PTSD
Having autism can sometimes mean enduring a litany of traumatic events, starting from a young age. And for many, those ...
Depression ‘three times as common’ among adults with autism
Depression is more than three times as common among adults with autism as it is in the general population, according ...
Should you disclose your autism diagnosis at work?
One central question those of us with jobs face is: Do I disclose my autism diagnosis to my boss and ...
Viewpoint: Federal marijuana regulations defy ‘common sense’, hindering autism and epilepsy research
A few years ago, I began to see children in my practice who seemingly responded to marijuana-derived extracts. And as ...
Are we close to a simple blood test for autism?
A new study suggests that its results could lead to a simple test for some children with autism, but statisticians ...
Pregnancy and depression: Do antidepressants increase risk of autism?
Among the many things a woman is supposed to avoid when pregnant are antidepressants, particularly a subtype of the drugs ...
Diagnosing autism: Proposed revision of global diagnostic manual raises concerns
The proposed new version of the global manual for diagnosing medical conditions gets many things right about autism — but ...
Pregnancy complications linked to higher risk of autism
High blood pressure or abnormal bleeding during pregnancy, as well as complications such as cesarean delivery or preterm birth, may ...
Approval of marijuana treatment for epilepsy could be boost for autism research
The United States has approved, for the first time, a compound derived from marijuana to treat certain types of epilepsy ...
Treating autism with serotonin
Boosting levels of the chemical messenger serotonin makes mice that model autism more social, according to a study published [August ...
Why identifying suicide risk among people with autism is a challenge
Studies over the past few years hint that suicidal ideation is more common in people with autism than in the ...
Searching for signs of autism in early infant behavior
Fearfulness and shyness in babies and toddlers predict features of autism at age 7, according to a new study. But ...
Differences in brain reward system may explain why autistic people are less interested in socialization
The brain’s system for sensing pleasure and reward shows unusual activation patterns in people with autism, according to an analysis ...
Autism diagnosis, treatment often complicated by accompanying conditions
More than half of people on the [autism] spectrum have four or more other conditions. The types of co-occurring conditions ...
Increased autism risk linked to maternal high blood pressure and diabetes
Children born to women who had diabetes or high blood pressure while pregnant are at an increased risk of autism, ...
Using brain ‘fingerprints’ to study and refine autism treatment
[T]he National Institutes of Health has been supporting research into the ‘human connectome’— the collection of information pathways in the ...
