Most mornings, Huda Zoghbi, 67, climbs a glass-encased, curling staircase to reach her lab on the top and 13th floor of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute in Houston, Texas. The twisting glass tower, which she designed with a team of architects, echoes the double helix of DNA — a…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the okay to an app designed to help clinicians diagnose autism in children, labeling it safe for use. But it’s still unclear whether the technology is effective, researchers say, raising concerns that it could actually disrupt the standard diagno…

My 5 Self-Care Summer Practices There have been countless afternoons that I’ve spent shivering in my living room while doing school work and client work with my AC blasting at 60 looking out at the warm sun wondering why I feel so disconnected. Why the world feels more empty and cold. So, I’m mak…

Mutations in CUL3, a leading autism gene, may disrupt the movements of neurons during development and interrupt the precise assembly of the brain, a new study suggests. Correcting this misdirection could lead to a therapy for autism in people with CUL3 mutations, the researchers say. Mutations that …

Art therapy has been used for years as way to connect with individuals who think more visually or... The post How Art Therapy Can Help Children with Autism and Untreated Trauma appeared first on The Autism Site News. Source: The Autism Site

The Navy letter cited "academic skills and developmental disorders," but Tory believes they were referring to his autism. The post Navy Retracts ROTC Scholarship Offer from Young Man on the Autism Spectrum appeared first on The Autism Site News. Source: The Autism Site

In the ideal world, every child would have parents and other loving family members who are engaged in their education, social activities, health and wellness, and leisure time.  This engagement provides protection for the child, emotional bonding for the family, and opportunities for parents to…

When clinicians suspect someone has autism, they often turn to screening tools — standardized questionnaires or checklists that measure autism traits. If a high score corroborates their hunch, they refer the person to a specialist for a diagnostic evaluation. These screening tools typically come wit…

By Nils Skudra This week I took the opportunity to watch The Theory of Everything, a 2014 biographical film about the renowned cosmologist and physicist Stephen Hawking who struggled with ALS (commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) throughout his life but achieved remarkable success and internation…

Pregnant mice treated to mount an immune response have pups that show autism-like behaviors and altered levels of immune cells, according to a new study. Injecting the pups in adulthood with immune cells from other mice reverses both traits, the study also shows. The work may help to explain the lin…

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Community Newsletter! I’m your host, Chelsey B. Coombs, Spectrum’s engagement editor. We’ve got some great tweets for you this week, so let’s dive in. Our first thread comes from Robert McCutcheon, clinical research fellow in psychiatry at King’s College London in t…

By Ron Sandison Father’s Day is especially meaningful to me as a dad with autism, I try not to take the responsibility for granted with my hectic schedule of writing and speaking. When I was diagnosed with autism at age seven the experts informed my parents I would probably never get married and ha…

The post Spotted around the web: Autistic parents, dopamine signaling, African neuroscience research appeared first on Spectrum | Autism Research News. Source: Spectrum News

Mice missing the autism-linked gene SHANK3 use more neurons to engage in social behavior than control mice do, reflecting a more disorganized, less efficient brain signaling network, according to a new study. Mutations in SHANK3 show up in 1 to 2 percent of autistic people and can also lead to a rel…