Clinical trials of autism treatments rarely use a consistent set of tools to measure efficacy, a new study suggests1. Instead, researchers generally design questionnaires specific to their study goals, and 69 percent of these tools are used only once. The lack of consistency could obscure positive r…

For more than five decades, I have studied how our physiology influences mental processes and behavior. During this period, I have studied people — including autistic children — who have trouble regulating their behavior and emotions. Based on my research, I have developed a theory: The neural regul…

Brain signals measured during a simple visual task could serve as a biomarker for autism, according to a new study published Thursday1. The task tests a person’s ability to perceive a phenomenon called binocular rivalry. This occurs when a person views two images simultaneously — one with the left e…

The levels of four chemicals in the brain may distinguish autism and vary with its severity, according to a new study1. Autistic people tend to have high levels of at least one of these chemicals in their neurons and low levels in the projections from these neurons. Each chemical reflects a differen…

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The brain areas involved in mice’s high-pitched squeaks are not the same as those that govern human speech, according to two new studies1,2. Mice emit ultrasonic vocalizations, which people cannot hear. Young mice make them when they are separated from their mothers, for example, and adult mice use …

A comprehensive review has found no scientific basis for a controversial technique that supposedly helps autistic people communicate1. In the ‘rapid prompting method,’ a person trained in the technique holds an alphabet board or a tablet and, using words or gestures, prompts an autistic person to po…

Children who carry mutations in chromosomal region 16p11.2 or the gene CHD8 — two of the leading risk factors for autism — show distinct patterns of chemical tags on their DNA. These patterns distinguish each group of children from all others who have autism with a different cause. Researchers prese…

One form of the protein implicated in Angelman syndrome clusters in the nucleus of the cell, and it’s this form that is critical to brain development, a new mouse study suggests1. The results point to a new path forward for studying the syndrome, which shares its roots with some types of autism. Ang…

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