Longer days in the Northern Hemisphere, longer threads about autism research on Twitter — welcome to the first Community Newsletter from Spectrum this February. Liz Pellicano, professor of education at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, threaded together 14 tweets full of COVID-19 lockdown l…

By Nils Skudra This weekend I had the opportunity to finish watching the new Amazon Prime series As We See It, a compelling 8-episode portrayal of three young autistic adults dealing with the challenges of independent living. This series provides a highly insightful and sensitive look at the issues…

By Kris McElroy If someone would have asked me to rate my anxiety and excitement on a scale of 1-10 when I found out I was going to be a dad in May of 2020, I would have said, “are you kidding me? I’m like a 25 on excitement and a 50 on anxiety”. Before then I never believed I could be a parent beca…

The post Spotted around the web: Oxytocin mice, social memory mechanisms, Autism Drug Trial Tracker update appeared first on Spectrum | Autism Research News. Source: Spectrum News

New software uses machine-learning to automatically detect and quantify gait and posture from videos of mice moving around their cage. The tool could accelerate research on how autism-linked mutations or drug treatments affect motor skills, says lead researcher Vivek Kumar, associate professor of ma…

The COVID-19 pandemic forced them to take their study online, but they weren't expecting to uncover positive results. The post Pandemic Yields Unexpected Discovery in Autism Therapy Study appeared first on The Autism Site News. Source: The Autism Site

Activating the immune system blunts social behaviors in mice missing a copy of the autism-linked gene SHANK3, according to a new study. But blocking TRPV4, a gene that encodes an ion channel involved in inflammatory responses, can reverse the change, the researchers also found. The results may clari…

By Danyale Sturdivant When my son Joshua was born, I cannot begin to tell you how happy I was! I had watched video’s and read books and was so “prepared”! I had everything down and was excited to take on this new venture. As life would have it, he was diagnosed with Autism at 2 ½ and that is when o…

A new technology called Action Audio took a giant leap recently to make a sport as enthralling, fast paced, dramatic and visual as Tennis a lot more accessible and enjoyable for people with visual impairment Action Audio is a new ball tracking technology that tracks the ball’s position and conver…

Mutations in three genes strongly associated with autism shift the pace at which certain inhibitory and excitatory neurons develop, according to a study published today in Nature. The findings reveal a novel point of convergence by which the mutations affect brain growth and activity, the researcher…

Angelman syndrome model mice have fewer-than-expected behavioral and motor problems if they grow up in a stimulating enclosure, filled with toys and other enrichments, according to a new study. The mice are missing a copy of UBE3A — the gene mutated or deleted in people with Angelman syndrome, an au…

February is Black History Month. If you have someone you’d like to add to this post, please comment below. The list is dynamic. 1. Anita Cameron Anita is one of the original disability rights activitists in the United States. She worked on the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act …

A study published yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics prompted headlines such as “Baby boys who watch TV for at least two hours a day are 3.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with autism by age three, study finds.” Spectrum asked statistics expert Kristin Sainani, associate teaching professor of epidemiol…

Early in her first postdoctoral position, Hollis Cline first showed her hallmark flair for creative problem-solving. Cline, who goes by Holly, and her adviser, neuroscientist Martha Constantine-Paton, wanted to study the brain’s ‘topographical maps’ — internal representations of sensory input from t…