Category: Autism News

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Mohamed Fofana, a 4-year-old boy with autism described as nonspeaking, was found dead on the shoreline of Spectacle Island on Monday after being reported missing at Castle Island over the weekend. His death echoes similar cases of children with autism spectrum disorder who have either drowned or died near bodies of water…

Summary: Researchers have identified a potential new treatment method for Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), a leading cause of autism spectrum disorders. The method involves contracting the CGG trinucleotide repeat in the FMR1 gene, thereby restoring the essential FMRP protein expression necessary for brain development. The researchers utilized inhibitors of two kinases (MEK and BRAF) to…

Screening slip: Two papers based on a trial for the drug levodopa were retracted because the researchers failed to exclude participants who did not meet the trial’s inclusion criteria. Donald Iain Smith / Getty Images Two studies conducted at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in New York City have been withdrawn because the researchers…

Mutations in any of 10 genes strongly linked to autism have several converging effects on brain size, activity and behavior in zebrafish via pathways that involve the proliferation of dopamine neurons and microglia, according to a new study. None of the mutations cause identical changes. But their varied effects on brain size occur largely in…

Futurity is your source of research news from leading universities. Cases of kids diagnosed with profound autism on the rise Over a 16-year period, the rate of profound autism doubled to 4.6 cases per 1,000 eight-year-olds. Children most likely to be diagnosed are poor, female, and non-white. (Credit: Getty Images) Share this Article You are…

Cell accelerator: Neurons (green) fire differently depending on whether the astrocytes (red) they are grown with are cultivated from people with or without fragile X. Courtesy of Rakhi Pal, Bharath Reddy and Sumantra Chattarji A change in the proteins secreted by astrocytes, star-shaped cells that support neurons, may contribute to the atypical firing patterns of…

Moving target: The drug arbaclofen did not make a significant dent in the primary endpoint of two new clinical trials for autism, but it improved some other aspects of the condition. andreaobzerova / Adobe Stock Autistic children and teenagers who took the investigational drug arbaclofen fared no better than controls on a rating of social…

Background noise: An autism-linked mutation can have significantly different effects when hosted in organoids grown from cells of autistic people versus those made from cells of neurotypical people. Courtesy of Shuai Fu et al. / The American Journal of Human Genetics An autism-linked mutation disrupts the development of clusters of brain cells, or brain organoids,…

Brendan Fraser has been winning all of the awards this year for his starring performance in The Whale. But this week he was recognized for something that he says is just as important to him. On Wednesday, May 3, at the Greenwich International Film Festival’s Inaugural GIFF Inspiration Talk & Award Ceremony, he received an…

Research associate professor, San Diego State University For more than a decade, Ruth Carper has noticed a troubling pattern in the neuroimaging literature on autism: Every review article seems to say that scientists don’t know much about older autistic adults. Some studies have identified differences between autistic and non-autistic adults, but typically at only a…