Multiple Strikes Against Autism

Scientists discover new autism genes and a non-coding RNA thought to contribute to the disorder.

Written byRuth Williams

| 3 min read

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Autism is thought to arise due to complex interactions of various environmental and genetic elements, most of which have yet to be identified. Just today, three papers published in Nature found three new autism-linked genes, and flagged hundreds more as possibly being linked to the disease. And if that wasn’t complicated enough, another study, published today (April 4) in Science Translational Medicine, identified another autism-linked genetic element that doesn’t even code for a gene—a newly discovered non-coding RNA—which has a surprisingly complex gene regulatory function.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a blanket term covering an array of developmental behavioral disorders characterized by, among other things, social deficits, communication problems, and repetitive behaviors. Though the cause of ASD is poorly understood, over the years scientists have ...

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Meet the Author

Ruth Williams
Ruth is a freelance journalist. Before freelancing, Ruth was a news editor for the Journal of Cell Biology in New York and an assistant editor for Nature Reviews Neuroscience in London. Prior to that, she was a bona fide pipette-wielding, test tube–shaking, lab coat–shirking research scientist. She has a PhD in genetics from King’s College London, and was a postdoc in stem cell biology at Imperial College London. Today she lives and writes in Connecticut.
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