Offspring born to pregnant rats with an activated immune system emit more distress calls when they receive electrical shocks than do controls, according to a study published 9 June in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

A girl with autism has a spontaneous deletion in CMIP, a gene associated with specific language impairment, providing another genetic link between the two disorders. The case study was published 11 June in Autism Research.

The action of certain maternal antibodies on the fetal brain may underlie the large brain size seen in some children with autism, according to preliminary findings from both monkey and human studies presented at a conference in Boston last week.

Identifying genetic variants that affect the expression of other genes can enhance traditional gene association analyses and highlight candidate risk factors for autism, according to a study published 16 May in Molecular Autism.

The protein missing in people with fragile X syndrome may activate the expression of a signaling protein dubbed NOS1 during prenatal development of brain regions involved in language and social skills, according to a study published 11 May in Cell.

Studying how and when people bluff during a poker game could help us understand how people make social decisions, according to an article in Science. The same approach could also be used to study social deficits in autism.

Understanding the function of neuronal circuits, specifically microcircuits in the prefrontal cortex and elsewhere in the brain, will play a major role in translating research findings into new autism treatments, says Vikaas Sohal.

An abnormal response to sound detected by brain imaging may distinguish children with autism from those with specific language impairment, according to a study published 30 May in Neuroreport.

By sequencing the protein-coding region of the genome of a single affected family member, researchers were able to diagnose 20 percent of people in 85 consanguineous families with unknown neurodevelopmental disorders, according to research published 13 June in Science Translational Medicine.

The Allen Institute convened a five-day ‘hackathon’ to create new tools that take advantage of the petabytes of brain mapping data in the institute’s massive databases.