Most neuroscientists who study autism focus on genes, pathways and mouse models, and rarely think about the day-to-day experience of people with the disorder, contends developmental psychologist Ami Klin.

Two new studies suggest that people with autism don’t all have trouble detecting the motion of people and animals. What they do struggle with is picking up social information from bodies in motion.

Adults with autism who have high intelligence quotients (IQ) are better at identifying the direction of biological motion than are those with lower IQ scores, according to a study published 3 May in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

The goal of studying siblings of children with autism is to identify an early diagnostic marker for the disorder. What researchers are finding instead are distinct traits shared by family members who remain healthy.

People with autism are slower than controls at interpreting emotions expressed by physical movement, researchers reported Wednesday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

Siblings of children with autism who show no signs of the disorder may be compensating with increased activity in two brain regions that detect social cues, according to results presented yesterday at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.

Oxytocin may activate the mirror neuron system — a group of neurons that is active when people empathize with others — according to a paper published in the November Psychoneuroendocrinology.

Children with autism are less likely to yawn when others do, perhaps because they tend not to unconsciously mimic behavior.

Individuals with autism detect the motion of an object with the same accuracy as they detect the motion of people, whereas controls are more attuned to human movement, according to a study published in August in Autism Research.

With robust training in developmental psychology and a techie’s fervor for new tools, Kevin Pelphrey is systematically investigating how the brain changes during development — starting in infants as young as 6 weeks old.