Spectrum

Autism treatment could be found through cancer drug
Jessica Wright | 
A low dose of a drug used to treat lymphoma may ease social problems in some forms of autism, a ...

Viewpoint: Autism research needs a better mouse
James Noonan | 
The autism risk genes discovered to date are especially amenable to study in mouse models. Mice have analogous versions of ...

Colombian town with world’s largest Fragile X cluster likely linked to 18th century founder
Hannah Furfaro | 
A semirural Colombian town called Ricaurte, about 150 miles southwest of Bogotá, may be home to the largest recorded genetic ...

Seeking a connection between autism and the brain’s memory center
Jessica Wright | 
The same processes that enable the brain to store new memories may also control many autism genes, a new study ...

Autism shares gene expression pathways with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
Nicholette Zeliadt | 
Gene expression patterns in the brains of people with autism are similar to those of people who have schizophrenia or ...

How heritable is autism? Twins research suggests we may be vastly underestimating it
Bret Stetka | 
An analysis of DNA variants suggests the heritability of childhood behavior problems, including autism traits, is about 6 percent, researchers ...

Twin studies suggest our genes heavily influence how children ‘gaze’ and view interactions
Hannah Furfaro | 
The way children view both social and nonsocial situations may be determined at least in part by their genes, a ...

Genetics account for 83% of autism risk, re-do study finds
Ciara Curtin | 
A reanalysis of data from more than 2 million children in Sweden suggests inherited genetic factors account for 83 percent ...

Link between autism and schizophrenia may be key to treating both
Daisy Yuhas | 
When the shy, dark-haired boy met with clinicians for a full psychiatric evaluation two years ago, almost everything about him ...

Oxytocin and autism: Could nasal spray boost social skills?
Jessica Wright | 
Treatment with the hormone oxytocin improves social skills in some children with autism, suggest results from a small clinical trial ...

Hunting for DNA: Piecing together autism’s genetic puzzle
Simon Makin | 
It’s been 10 years since Michael Wigler had a breakthrough revelation in autism genetics...[when he] reported that ‘de novo’ mutations — those that ...

What might autism researchers learn from schizophrenia?
Mark Daly | 
The general features [of autism] are nearly identical to those of another heritable condition: schizophrenia. The pattern is so distinctive ...

Face time: Babies’ attraction to human faces may develop in the womb
Bahar Gholipour | 
Fetuses favor patterns of light that resemble faces over those without face-like features, a new study suggests. The study...is the ...

Autism and ADHD are genetically linked
Bahar Gholipour | 
A trio of studies make the strongest case to date that autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) share similar ...

Family trees may hold key to unlocking mystery of autism, Alzheimer’s risk
Anna Nowogrodzki | 
The standard approach for unearthing genetic variants linked to a particular condition is a genome-wide association study (GWAS). For this ...

Blacks have been largely excluded from autism studies. Here’s what’s being done to change that
Daniel Geschwind | 
[Editor's note: Daniel Geschwind’s team at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), along with researchers at three other universities, set ...

Why some autistic people can tolerate severe pain? Gene mice studies yielding answers
Ann Griswold | 
The gene SHANK3, a leading candidate for autism risk, helps sensory neurons respond to pain, according to a study in mice ...

Brains of people with autism share distinct genetic ‘signature’
Nicholette Zeliadt | 
The brains of people with autism show a distinct molecular signature, according to the largest-yet postmortem study of people with ...

Autism risk may be related to genes that influence sex-specific traits
Ann Griswold | 
Genetic variants that shape physical features that vary with sex, such as waist-to-hip ratio, may also affect autism risk, according ...

DNA mutations can influence far away genes as easily as those close-by
Jessica Wright | 
A new chart of DNA’s loops and twists reveals its three-dimensional (3-D) structure in the developing brain. It shows that ...

Does one genetic glitch determine risk of both autism and schizophrenia?
Carrie Bearden | 
From their earliest descriptions, schizophrenia and autism have been inextricably linked. ... Studies from the past several years show that ...

Why studying human chimeras offers best hope for finding Parkinson’s cure
Rudolf Jaenisch | 
Spectrum: Why do researchers want to study mouse-human chimeras? Rudolf Jaenisch: Traditionally, researchers have studied human conditions by mutating the ...

Analysis on specific genetic pathways may uncover roots of autism
Dan Arking, Shannon Ellis | 
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. The number of genetic ...

Controversial test claims to gauge autism risk from placenta
Ann Griswold | 
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. A new test claims ...
Brain’s immune cells may play role in autism development
Rebecca Boyle | 
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. The brain of a ...