National Autism News

The size of a baby's head is often related to neurological disorders, such as autism - which affects 1 in 88 children. Now, researchers at Duke University Medical Center have identified genes responsible for head size at birth by inserting human genes into zebrafish. The study is published online in the journal Nature. Nicholas Katsanis, Ph.D., Jean and George Brumley Jr. M.D...

Over the past decade, research in the field of epigenetics has revealed that chemically modified bases are abundant components of the human genome and has forced us to abandon the notion we've had since high school genetics that DNA consists of only four bases. Now, researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have made a discovery that once again forces us to rewrite our textbooks...

By focusing on the identification of common genetic variants, researchers have identified 57 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that predict - with a high degree of certainty - the risk that siblings of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) will also develop the condition. The findings were presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research...

A new prospective study of six-month-old infants at high genetic risk for autism identified weak head and neck control as a red flag for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and language and/or social developmental delays...

What can a fish tell us about human brain development? Researchers at Duke University Medical Center transplanted a set of human genes into a zebrafish and then used it to identify genes responsible for head size at birth. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center transplanted a set of human genes into a zebrafish and then used it to identify genes responsible for head size at birth...

A new University of Miami (UM) study shows that one in three children who have an older sibling with an Autism Related Disorder (ASD) fall into a group characterized by higher levels of autism-related behaviors or lower levels of developmental progress. The study will be presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR) in May, 2012...

Scientists at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) have discovered that mice that lack a gene called Snf2l have brains that are 35 per cent larger than normal. The research, led by Dr...

Anxiety disorders, ranging from social phobia to post-traumatic stress disorder, are the most common psychiatric diseases in the United States. Research in mice suggests a link between the gene that encodes Glyoxylase 1 (GLO1) and increased anxiety; however, the mechanism underlying this association has remained unclear...

A Kansas State University graduate student is creating a schoolyard that can become a therapeutic landscape for children with autism. Chelsey King, master's student in landscape architecture, St. Peters, Mo., is working with Katie Kingery-Page, assistant professor of landscape architecture, to envision a place where elementary school children with autism could feel comfortable and included...

The deletion of part of a gene that plays a role in the synthesis of carnitine - an amino acid derivative that helps the body use fat for energy - may play a role in milder forms of autism, said a group of researchers led by those at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital. "This is a novel inborn error of metabolism," said Dr...

A partial, duplicate copy of a gene appears to be responsible for the critical features of the human brain that distinguish us from our closest primate kin...

Autism has a strong genetic basis, but so far efforts to identify the responsible genes have had mixed results. The reason for this is that autism is influenced by many different genes, and different genes are involved in different individuals, making it hard to find the common genetic ground between patients...

When children behave badly, it's easy to blame their parents. Sometimes, however, such behavior may be due to a mental disorder. Mental illnesses are the No. 1 cause of medical disability in youths ages 15 and older in the United States and Canada, according to the World Health Organization...

Women who smoke in pregnancy may be more likely to have a child with high-functioning autism, such as Asperger's Disorder, according to preliminary findings from a study by researchers involved in the U.S. autism surveillance program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

In a study published in the May 2012 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, led by Mr. Sven Sandin, of the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden and King's College London, researchers analyzed past studies to investigate possible associations between maternal age and autism...

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Fortunately, this is not always true. Researchers at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN-KNAW) have now discovered how the adult brain can adapt to new situations. The Dutch researchers' findings are published in the prestigious journal Neuron...

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have unraveled a process by which depletion of a specific protein in the brain contributes to the memory problems associated with Alzheimer's disease...

An editorial published in the prestigious journal Environmental Health Perspectives calls for increased research to identify possible environmental causes of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders in America's children and presents a list of ten target chemicals including which are considered highly likely to contribute to these conditions...

New research from UC Davis and Washington State University shows that PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, launch a cellular chain of events that leads to an overabundance of dendrites -- the filament-like projections that conduct electrochemical signals between neurons -- and disrupts normal patterns of neuronal connections in the brain...

A new study, published by Cell Press in the journal Neuron, discovers several genes associated with autism and finds evidence for a shared genetic mechanism underlying autism and fragile X syndrome, the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability...