The ‘opto’ in optogenetics — the powerful method some autism researchers use to control neurons in mice and other animals — comes from the Greek optós, meaning visible. It’s a nod to the blue light used to switch on select neurons. A new technique can do the same, albeit with something invisible: so…

Hello, and welcome to Spectrum Launch — the newsletter for early-career autism researchers. This month, we have a Q&A with Andrew Jaffe, head of data sciences at Neumora Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based biotech firm that develops treatments for brain conditions. Before joining Neumora in Sept…

A study published last month in the British Journal of Psychiatry claimed that people who die by suicide have an elevated likelihood of being autistic or having undiagnosed autism, based on an analysis of coroner records and family interviews. Spectrum asked statistics expert Kristin Sainani for her…

Autistic children who show language regression — a loss of language skills in early childhood — do not necessarily have communication problems later on, a new study finds. In fact, in terms of both speaking and understanding words, these children follow the same overall developmental trajectory as a…

Last week’s news involved mice playing a crucial role in paving a path towards curing paralysis. This week’s MVP is sheep! You read that right – a team of Australian researchers at The University of Sydney implanted bionic eyes in a flock of sheep that resulted in exceptionally sharp eyesight.…

Social media in the autism space this week served up a helpful cheat sheet of standout research tweets to catch up on — plus an easier way to consume preprints. “Mixtures matter,” tweeted Giuseppe Testa, professor of molecular biology at Università Statale in Milan, Italy, about the effects of endoc…

The post Spotted around the web: Zebrafish startle, histone variants, autism history museum appeared first on Spectrum | Autism Research News. Source: Spectrum News

About 15 years ago, Ashura Buckley made an observation that intrigued her. She was monitoring the overnight brain activity of children with autism or developmental delay using electroencephalography (EEG) and noticed that their brain wave patterns were strikingly different from those of their neurot…

Yes, a spoonful of sugar does help the medicine go down, but there is a fine line between medicine and a sugar pill. By Anton Spivack When I saw this video on Youtube about how to choose a high school musical, one commenter listed a set of guidelines. One of which rang particularly true: “it has t…

The amygdala — which is involved in fear and emotion processing and comprises a small region in each brain hemisphere — develops differently in autistic children with anxiety than in either those without anxiety or non-autistic children, according to a new study. But the exact differences in how the…

By: Stephanny Freeman, PhD and Kristen Hayashida, MEd, BCBA. Their new book: “Executive Function in the Early Childhood Classroom” can be purchased HERE When kindergarten teachers are asked what skills they would like their students to have the beginning of the year, their answers might be surp…

Welcome to Spectrum Index, a monthly newsletter that distills data from noteworthy autism studies into a series of quick statistics. Let us know what you think at niko@spectrumnews.org, and thanks for reading. 25.75: The average standard deviation in intelligence quotient (IQ) for 671 autistic child…

About 48 percent of editors of autism-specific journals are women, according to a Spectrum analysis. That fraction is far higher than for neuroscience journals, for which just 30 percent of editors are women, according to a study published Monday in Nature Neuroscience. The new study looked at edito…

When Zachary Williams joined the Autistic Researchers Committee of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR), he that knew one of the group’s priorities would be to promote participatory research — an approach in which scientists work with autistic people and other members of the autism …