The prevalence of autism among 8-year-old children remained relatively stable from 2004 to 2010 in the U.K., reports a study published 16 October in BMJ Open. But experts say the study may be underestimating autism’s rates in the general population.
Bone marrow transplants, which have been shown to arrest symptoms of Rett syndrome in young mice, have little effect on older mice, according to preliminary results presented Monday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego. The findings suggest that this approach may not be a viable treatment for those who already have symptoms of the disorder.
Boys with tuberous sclerosis complex, an autism-related disorder, have more disorganized nerve fibers in some regions of the brain than do girls with the disorder, according to unpublished work presented Sunday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
Children with poor vision or a hearing loss are more likely to be diagnosed with autism than are those in the general population, reports a large epidemiological study published in October.
A new candidate gene for autism, called synapsin 2, regulates chemical messenger release across the connections between neurons, reports a study published 4 September in Human Molecular Genetics.
About one in four people diagnosed with a group of rare disorders have autism, according to a study published 7 October in the Journal of Medical Genetics. The disorders all affect a single cancer-related pathway, driven by a protein called RAS.
Children with autism go to sleep later, wake up earlier and have less restful sleep than other children their age, reports an 11-year study published 23 September.
Clinicians should place children under age 5 who have developmental delay into a broad diagnostic category, called ESSENCE, which may then resolve into any number of individual diagnoses over time, says Christopher Gillberg.
Autism may be male-biased in prevalence, but our understanding of it should not be, argues Meng-Chuan Lai.
Small regulatory RNA molecules are most active between infancy and early childhood in a region of the brain known for complex thinking and behavior, reports a new study published 6 August in Molecular Psychiatry. The finding, based on an analysis of postmortem brains, may provide insight into what goes wrong in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.