Two studies published 9 July bolster the hypothesis that immune molecules in a pregnant woman’s bloodstream may sometimes cause autism in her child.

Infants who go on to develop autism have excess fluid between the top of the brain and the skull that persists from about 6 months to 2 years of age, according to a study published 9 July in Brain.

A new analysis challenges the long-reported correlation between autism and abnormally large head circumference, begging the question: Should head size matter?

Two new studies raise questions about one of the most frequently reported biological signatures of autism: a larger-than-normal head.

Children with autism and their unaffected twins have heads that are significantly larger than average, according to a study published 16 January in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

Young boys with fragile X syndrome or autism have larger brains overall than controls do, but the two groups show enlargement of different parts of the brain, according to an imaging study published in September in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

The brains of newborn pigs are similar in shape and mature at the same rate as those of human infants. That makes piglets a good model for studying neurological disorders, according to a study published in the November issue of The Journal of Nutrition.

Several studies in the past two years have claimed that brain scans can diagnose autism, but this assertion is deeply flawed, says Nicholas Lange.

Children with a deletion in the 22q11.2 chromosomal region have one of two distinct sets of symptoms, and only one of those is associated with autism, according to a study published 28 August in Research in Developmental Disabilities.

Heavier newborns have larger brains later in life, and a larger cerebral cortex — the brain region responsible for high-level functions such as consciousness and language. The findings, published 19 November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are the first to assess birth weight’s connection to brain development.