Lessons learned from postmortem studies of schizophrenia are applicable to research on autism, a disorder for which brain tissue has not been as well studied, say Allison Curley and David Lewis.

Early intensive therapy may normalize the brain’s response to faces in young children with autism, according to a study published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The results are part of a randomized, controlled trial of a treatment called the Early Start Denver Model.

Postmortem brains from individuals with autism have abnormal levels of long non-coding RNAs, which regulate the expression of genes, according to a study published 5 September in the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience.

Researchers are assembling a virtual reconstruction of the brain by piecing together simulations of thousands of neurons, they reported 16 October in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They used this model to show that most junctions between neurons form randomly and not as the result of chemical signals.

Family members of individuals with autism process faces and scenes differently than do controls, according to two new studies, one of them published in October. This suggests that visual processing may be an autism endophenotype — a measurable symptom that represents part of the genetic risk of a disorder.

Two new case studies highlight how complex rearrangements of chromosome 15 can lead to different disorders, including autism and the related Prader-Willi syndrome.

Flooding from Hurricane Sandy has destroyed a major rodent colony at New York University. But most of the strains are also housed elsewhere, so researchers should be able to rebuild their collections.

Researchers have used stem cells to identify 801 neuronal genes that are preferentially expressed from either the maternal or paternal chromosome, according to a study published 30 August in PLoS One. Of these genes, 26 are linked to autism and 48 to schizophrenia. 

People with autism don’t look at others’ eyes or mimic their actions in everyday life, but they can do these things when asked to, according a review published 7 September in Brain and Development. 

Children with autism have trouble imitating others’ actions, a trait that may be linked to their poor motor skills, according to a study published 10 September in PLoS One.