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Spectrum: Autism Research News

Tag: glutamate

June 2023
Mice socialize in an enclosure

Neurons in thalamus sort new social cues from familiar ones

by  /  20 June 2023

A subset of thalamic neurons support an aspect of social behavior called social recognition, according to experiments in mice.

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May 2023
Photograph of white pills and blister pack on blue pastel colored background.

Trials of arbaclofen for autism yield mixed results

by  /  5 May 2023

Autistic children taking the drug showed improvements in some behaviors but not in their social skills.

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September 2022
An adult administers a medication to an infant.

Experimental drug shows promise for autism-linked syndromes

by  /  2 September 2022

The drug quells seizures in children with Dravet syndrome or Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

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July 2022

New resource maps gene expression, regulation in neuron subtypes

by  /  1 July 2022

The catalog could help researchers understand the effects of autism-linked DNA variants that fall outside genes.

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March 2022

New human neuron assays set stage for high-throughput autism drug screens

by  /  22 March 2022

The ability to conduct large-scale screening in human neurons could accelerate the discovery of autism treatments.

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January 2022
Visual stimulus of 4 circles with black and white stripes.

Visual task flags autistic people who respond to GABA agonists

by  /  5 January 2022

The investigational drug arbaclofen makes autistic people’s brains respond to a visual task more like non-autistic people’s brains do.

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June 2021
Mouse neuron recordings showing different levels of activity before and after an encounter with an unfamiliar mouse.

Neural network captures noisy neurons in autism mouse model

by  /  18 June 2021

Mice missing the autism-linked gene SHANK3 use more neurons to engage in social behavior than control mice do, reflecting a more disorganized, less efficient brain signaling network.

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May 2021
brainstem of rats in red, green and blue highlight higher levels of GABA.

GABA agonist rescues auditory hypersensitivity in rats missing autism-linked gene CNTNAP2

by  /  3 May 2021

The investigational drug arbaclofen may right an imbalance between inhibitory and excitatory signaling in the animals’ brains.

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July 2019

Family groups, researchers join forces to solve mysteries of autism gene

by  /  10 July 2019

Families of children with mutations in a gene called SYNGAP1 have spurred research into the effects of the mutations on people — and how to treat them.

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May 2019

The signaling imbalance theory of autism, explained

by  /  1 May 2019

The signaling imbalance theory holds that the brains of autistic people are hyper-excitable because of either excess neuronal activity or weak brakes on that activity.

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