Two clinical trials that altered vasopressin signaling report improved social functions in people with autism spectrum disorder, but researchers caution against overinterpreting the results.

Signaling imbalance, driven by too much excitatory activity, may be a consequence of whatever brain changes lead to autism rather than a cause of the condition.

Changes in gene expression also hint at how the brains of people with ASD develop differently from those of other people.

The PsychENCODE project delves into the DNA, RNA, and protein changes related to brain development and neuropsychiatric disorders, but researchers caution it’s just a first step toward treatment.

Researchers parse genes linked with intellectual disability and autism from those tied to autism alone.

Inflammation may be a strong contender for the connection between mom’s weight and children’s neurodevelopment, according to lab studies on animals.

People whose pupils change more dramatically during a visual perception task tend to score higher on a self-reported scale of autistic traits.

Researchers map learning-induced chromatin alterations in mouse brain cells, and find that many affect autism-associated genes.

Responses to compounds in human sweat may help explain why people with autism spectrum disorder tend to struggle with social cues.