Autism News and Research

Latest Autism News and Research

How a cartoon bear revealed surprising gaps in toddler hunger awareness

Preschool children aged 3–5 successfully used the Teddy the Bear pictorial scale to rate hunger before and after meals, supporting its validity for group-level research. However, younger children, especially three-year-olds, struggled more with using the tool accurately.

17 Apr 2025

Beyond Ivy League, RFK Jr.’s NIH slashed science funding across states that backed Trump

The National Institutes of Health's sweeping cuts of grants that fund scientific research are inflicting pain almost universally across the U.S., including in most states that backed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

17 Apr 2025

RFK Jr. struggles to navigate frustrated supporters and a demanding boss

After the Senate voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary, supporters of his "Make America Healthy Again" movement cheered at having a champion in the federal government.

17 Apr 2025

Researchers simulate protein structures behind learning and memory

Our brain's remarkable ability to form and store memories has long fascinated scientists, yet most of the microscopic mechanisms behind memory and learning processes remain a mystery.

16 Apr 2025

Study identifies brain area linked to social behavior and altruism

Are there areas of the brain, which regulate prosocial, altruistic behaviour? Together with colleagues from the universities in Lausanne, Utrecht and Cape Town, researchers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have studied a very special group of patients and established that the "basolateral amygdala" (part of the limbic system) plays an important role in this.

16 Apr 2025

Understanding the natural history of SCN8A-related epilepsy disorders

Researchers from the Epilepsy Neurogenetics Initiative (ENGIN) at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have completed a comprehensive natural history study of SCN8A-related disorders, which represent a spectrum of neurological symptoms.

15 Apr 2025

Scientists trace social challenges in autism to specific brain circuit

UNIGE scientists identified a brain circuit where lies the origin the social difficulties experienced by people with autism spectrum disorders.

14 Apr 2025

Gut imbalances in autism linked to brain and behavior changes

A new USC study suggests that gut imbalances in children with autism may create an imbalance of metabolites in the digestive system - ultimately disrupting neurotransmitter production and influencing behavioral symptoms.

14 Apr 2025

More psych hospital beds are needed for kids, but neighbors say not here

In January, a teenager in suburban St. Louis informed his high school counselor that a classmate said he planned to kill himself later that day.

11 Apr 2025

ChatGPT improves exercise for neurodivergent kids

A University of Michigan research team has used AI to help deliver exercise "snacks" to kids with autism.

11 Apr 2025

RFK Jr.’s purge of FOIA staff at FDA Spares people working on covid vaccine lawsuits

Mass firings at the FDA have decimated divisions tasked with releasing public records generated by the agency's regulatory activities in sectors including tobacco, food, medical devices, and veterinary medicine.

10 Apr 2025

Researchers uncover a new genetic cause of neurodevelopmental disorders

A seminal study from researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and their collaborators in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, and Iceland has uncovered a new genetic cause of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs).

10 Apr 2025

Genetic breakthrough in psychiatry using long-read genomic sequencing

In a manuscript published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry titled Long-Read Genome Sequencing in Clinical Psychiatry: RFX3 Haploinsufficiency in a Hospitalized Adolescent With Autism, Intellectual Disability, and Behavioral Decompensation, authors describe how they leveraged long-read genomic sequencing (LRS) to make a genetic diagnosis in a17-year-old male with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, and acute behavioral decompensation that would not have been possible by standard methods.

9 Apr 2025