A computer program automatically aligns mouse brain images with a reference brain atlas and thereby maps individual neurons stained in the images1. First released in 2018, the tool helps researchers analyze neurons and their connections in a standardized way. It was described in May in Cell Reports.…

Autistic Employment By Christa Holmans, Neurodivergent Rebel One in 59 kids is born autistic, and more than 3.5 million people in America alone are estimated to be autistic (source: Autism Society). These numbers have been on the rise in recent years, mostly thanks to growing awareness and imp…

Wesley Grubbs is founder of Pitch Interactive, a data-visualization studio in Berkeley, California, where his role allows him to merge the creative and analytical. He is also the parent of two children: Orson, 7, and Lyra, 12, who is autistic. When Lyra was 6 years old, Grubbs started a collaborativ…

Nearly all genes with moderate to strong ties to autism are expressed in the developing amygdala, according to a new study1. In autistic people, a few of these genes show altered expression in the amygdala, a brain region important for social and emotional function. Past studies have shown that auti…

The Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, the largest private funder of spinal cord injury research, education, clinical training and programmatic support in the U.S. and Canada, announced on July 23rd that it has allocated close to $10 million in emergency grant funding to support the spinal cord injury (SC…

Infants with particular patterns of electrical activity in the brain go on to have high levels of autism traits as toddlers, a new study shows1. Specifically, babies who have unusually high or low synchrony between certain brain waves — as measured by electroencephalography (EEG) — at 3 months old t…

Intellectually or developmentally disabled New Yorkers living in group homes may be more likely to contract and die of COVID-19 than those in the general population, according to a new study of more than 20,000 group-home residents1. The study captures only a subset of New York’s group-home re…

Autistic Pride By Megan Amodeo Why should we, the autistic community, try to sensor everything we say to make sure it is more palatable for those around us? Should I try to fit into a societal image that has been forced upon me? I think about these topics more than I am willing to admit. &#…

The post How autism shapes sibling relationships appeared first on Spectrum | Autism Research News. Source: Spectrum News

“Ethan is my hero. If he hadn't been born I would still be living a life of denial.”Source: The Autism Site

Social difficulties have been considered a defining characteristic of autism since Leo Kanner published the first clinical descriptions of the condition in 1943. However, people with autism can show striking variability in social function: Some lack social interest and awareness of other people and …

Following up on a phone call about a suspicious person, a policeman determined Reginald "Neli" Latson was unarmed. But when he wouldn't give the policeman his name, the cop reacted physically and told him he was going to arrest him. Source: The Autism Site

We were thrilled to feature Chris Bonnello of Autistic Not Weird after the release of his YA SciFi  novel, Underdogs. It’s a dystopian future story featuring autistic, dyslexic and other neurodiverse heroes. Since our interview, Underdogs has been such a success Chris’ publisher asked for a second n…

The autism gene SHANK3 is crucial for the development and function of muscles and the motor neurons that control them, according to a new study1. This relationship may explain why some people with mutations in the gene have low muscle tone, says co-lead investigator Maria Demestre, senior researcher…