The stringent statistical threshold used in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) hides low-frequency variants linked to autism and other conditions, a new preprint suggests. Lowering the threshold could reveal some of those variants, according to the study. “It’s really innovative,” says Carrie Bearden, professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, […]
Multiple mouse and human brain atlases track the emergence of distinct cell types during development and uncover some of the pathways that decide a cell’s fate. The findings were published today in a collection of Nature papers. The papers highlight the timing and location of cell diversification and offer fresh insights into the evolution of […]
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced during a White House press conference last week that it would expand the use of leucovorin as “a promising treatment for symptoms of autism,” it cited an analysis of 23 publications. The Transmitter has obtained the list of the 23 studies—which together examine leucovorin treatment in […]
On 22 September, Richard Frye was in Saudi Arabia when he says he woke up to an email from Mehmet Oz, head of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, inviting him to the White House that afternoon. Although Frye was unable to attend, he soon learned that Oz’s boss, Health and Human Services […]
Illustration by Laurenne Boglio Twitter can feel like an echo chamber — but sometimes the reverberations amplify important calls to action. This week, Andrew Whitehouse, Angela Wright Bennett Professor of Autism Research at the Telethon Kids Institute and the University of Western Australia in Perth, tweeted a thread that turned up the volume on Helen […]
Frail rules: Most autism research journals do not mandate that researchers include racial or ethnic data on participants. FatCamera/Getty Images Just one-quarter of autism intervention studies provide data on the race and ethnicity of participants, according to a new study. The analysis, published in Autism in January, focused on educational or behavioral interventions given in […]
Making Connections: In the second trimester of pregnancy, groups of neurons have formed identifiable synaptic connections in the human cortex. Unpublished image courtesy of Li Zhou / University of California, San Francisco Two new, unpublished studies, which were presented virtually at the Society for Neuroscience’s 2021 annual meeting, offer insights into synapse development: one maps […]
About 15 years ago, psychologist Geoff Bird began questioning a longstanding tenet in autism research: the idea that all autistic people struggle with empathy. It just didn’t make sense to Bird. In his experience, both autistic and non-autistic people differ greatly in their ability to sense or feel another person’s emotions – the scientific definition […]
Sharp Relief: After reviewing a variety of potentially confusing factors, two new studies show no association between autism and epidural anesthesia. RapidEye / iStock The epidural anesthesia commonly given to pregnant women during labor is not linked to autism in children, according to two studies published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. […]
Prior to the bill, many but not all schools in North Dakota had Native American studies, Baesler said. The passing has raised awareness of resources available to teachers such as the State Historical Society of North Dakota and the State Department of Public Instruction, she said. The scope of the curriculum is left to the […]
Before writing the book Coloring Outside Autism’s Lines, author Susan Walton was told to mourn her son’s diagnosis of autism in order to “mourn the loss of the child I dreamed of.” While a diagnosis can certainly be daunting, this is no reason to suggest that a parent “lost” a child. Children with autism are […]
