Spectrum
Book review: ‘In Quest of the Historical Adam’ reviews tension between science and biblical accounts
In Quest of the Historical Adam is one of several books published in recent years that attempts to grapple with ...
Brain fingerprinting: Microelectronics and medical imaging bring us closer to acheiving mind reading and banishing blindness
Coupled with powerful microelectronics, science’s understanding of the brain is opening the door to new ways of handling criminal investigations ...
Large autism mutation risk does not increase as parents age, study finds
Spontaneous, or de novo, mutations can occur in a sperm or egg cell, or very early on in an embryo’s ...
Explaining the overlap in gender and sexuality in autistic individuals
In the 1990s, as growing numbers of children sought care related to their gender identity, clinicians and researchers began to ...
Pushing back on claims of links between marijuana and autism
Women are increasingly using marijuana during pregnancy, especially as more states in the United States and other countries legalize its ...
Babies’ brain waves could forewarn autism
[B]abies who have unusually high or low synchrony between certain brain waves — as measured by electroencephalography (EEG) — at ...
Viewpoint: Blacks raise questions about racial stereotyping of autism diagnoses and therapies
Part of the reason people are quick to stereotype me is that there is no research on middle-aged black women ...
Certain autism behaviors and seizures might have a common origins
Early behavioral signs predict seizures in autistic children, according to a new study. Previous work has shown that 5 to ...
Autism linked to eating disorders—but which comes first?
At least 20 percent of adults and 3 percent of children with eating disorders also have autism. But much of ...
Environmental factors can’t be blamed for rising autism rates, study says
The relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to autism and traits of the condition have held steady over multiple ...
Early test for autism could be possible by measuring levels of the hormone vasopressin
Low levels of the hormone vasopressin in early infancy may presage an autism diagnosis in childhood, according to a new ...
Autistic children struggle with emotional control. It’s even harder for girls, study says
Emotion control eludes more girls than boys with autism, according to a new study of young people hospitalized for psychiatric ...
‘Profound consequences’: Autistic people unable to tune out distractions, study suggests
Autistic people have atypical activity in a part of the brain that regulates attention, according to a new study. The ...
Infants with ‘insecure attachments’ to parents may be at higher risk of autism
Younger siblings of children with autism who have insecure attachments to their caregivers are more likely to be diagnosed with ...
Early sleep problems for autistic children may predict repetitive behaviors later
Early sleep problems predict repetitive behaviors later in childhood. And toddlers who overreact or underreact to sensory stimuli have more ...
Questioning the reliability of common autism screening tool
A short, widely used screening survey for autism called the Autism Spectrum Quotient – 10 items (AQ-10) may not be ...
Autistic children often have trouble sleeping. Melatonin may help, study says
Melatonin is safe for long-term use in autistic children who have difficulty sleeping, according to a new study. The study ...
‘One piece of the puzzle’: Exploring differences in medical care for black and white children with autism
Black children with autism who are hospitalized for psychiatric problems are more impaired than their white peers, according to a ...
People with autism show significant increases in IQ as they mature, but development issues remain
People with autism show significant improvements in cognitive ability from age 12 to 23 years, but their autism traits remain ...
How repetitive movements help autistic people cope with anxiety
Typical infants and toddlers may kick their legs repeatedly, rock back and forth while playing or flap their hands in ...
Why are older parents more likely to have children with autism?
Older men and women are more likely than young ones to have a child with autism, according to multiple studies ...
People with autism more likely to experience headaches and epilepsy
People with autism have more brain-related health problems, such as headaches and epilepsy, than typical people do, according to a ...
Autism may not ‘hardwired by genetics’, with severity shaped by early life experiences, claims researchers in yet unpublished study
A child’s environment exerts a strong influence on the severity of her autism, according to a study of 78 pairs ...
Sperm test could predict odds of fathering child with autism
Some men who have an autistic child carry mutations linked to the condition only in their sperm, according to a ...
Why we’re seeing more cases of autoimmune disorder PANDAS—if it even exists
In 1998, Susan Swedo, then a pediatrician at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), first proposed PANDAS to explain ...
Autism may share genetic links to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and other psychiatric disorders
Some of the inherited variants implicated in autism also increase the odds of other conditions, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression ...
Sex-linked mutations point to need for closer look at causes of autism in women, study suggests
Autism may stem from a different — and larger — set of genetic mutations in women than it does in ...
Children showing signs of autism should be treated before diagnosis is confirmed, under new guidelines
Pediatricians should start treating children who show signs of autism even before tests confirm a diagnosis, according to the newest ...
