First biomarker evidence of DDT-autism link A study of more than 1 million pregnancies in Finland reports that elevated levels of a metabolite of the banned insecticide DDT in the blood of pregnant women are linked to increased risk for autism in the offspring. An international research team led by investigators at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and …

Potential biomarker for autism A study of young children with autism spectrum disorder published in JNeurosci reveals altered brain waves compared to typically developing children during a motor control task. The non-invasive neuroimaging technique used in this study could be employed to detect autism symptoms as early as infancy. People with autism show reduced inhibitory neural activity, reflected in gamma …

Study: Autism Linked with Different Reactions to Chemical Signals While humans aren’t as smell-dependent as many other animals, studies have shown we respond differently to others when they’re emitting certain olfactory signals—even if we can’t consciously detect them. In a study published today in Nature Neuroscience, researchers find that men with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) sometimes respond differently to these …

New Autism Drug Shows Promise in Preclinical Study Research concerning autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has seen its fair share of controversy over the years, but as researchers relentlessly pursue the underlying causes of this developmental disorder, scientific consensus and public awareness grow. Adding to the exponential growth of data for ASD, a group of investigators led by researchers at Sanford …

Inflamed support cells appear to contribute to some kinds of autism Modeling the interplay between neurons and astrocytes derived from children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues in Brazil, say innate inflammation in the latter appears to contribute to neuronal dysfunction in at least some forms of the disease. …

A piece of the puzzle: 8 autism-related mutations in 1 gene Scientists have identified a hotspot for autism-related mutations in a single gene. By studying data from thousands of genomes of people with autism-spectrum disorders, an interdisciplinary team of USC researchers homed in on a gene called TRIO. The TRIO gene produces a protein that influences the development and strength …

Science in Focus: Creating Neurons from Skin Cells to Understand Autism Studying brain disorders is complicated for many reasons, not the least being the ethics of obtaining living neurons. To overcome that obstacle, UC San Francisco postdoc Aditi Deshpande, PhD, is starting with skin cells. Thanks to developments in stem cell technology, new information about the human brain is now being …

Altered mitochondria associated with increased autism risk Mitochondria, the tiny structures inside our cells that generate energy, may play a key role in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A provocative new study by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)’s pioneering mitochondrial medicine team suggests that variations in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) originating during ancient human migrations may play an important role in predisposition to ASDs. “Our …