Renowned neuroscientist will lead Tulane Brain Institute as new Presidential Chair
Tulane UniversityMatthew Dalva will succeed Jill Daniel, who has been head of the Brain Institute since its inception in 2016.
Matthew Dalva will succeed Jill Daniel, who has been head of the Brain Institute since its inception in 2016.
Additional insights can help guide interventions that can assist individuals in processing and understanding their surroundings better.
The new study finds brain-wide changes in virtually all of the 11 cortical regions analyzed, regardless of whether they are higher critical association regions – those involved in functions such as reasoning, language, social cognition and mental flexibility – or primary sensory regions.
Shafali Spurling Jeste, MD, shares early findings—and a critical challenge—from the Autism Biomarkers Consortium for Clinical Trials. How do you know if a treatment for autism is effective? That’s a question that has no easy answer—due in large part to the heterogeneous nature of autism spectrum disorder.
Texas Biomed will help map the developing brain with unprecedented detail for the National Institutes of Health’s BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network (BICAN). NIH recently awarded a total of $500 million to 11 teams that will work together to build a 3D brain atlas at single cell resolution over the next five years.
A research group led by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has proposed a new concept for predicting autism and autistic traits. Empathic disequilibrium combines two types of empathy into a single scale for the first time.
Autistic people are more vulnerable to depression and anxiety during pregnancy, according to new research from the University of Cambridge.
Here are some of the latest articles that have been added to the Drugs and drug abuse channel.
The latest articles that have been added to the Environmental Health channel.
Whatever you do, don’t call them “mini-brains,” say University of Utah Health scientists. Regardless, the seed-sized organoids—which are grown in the lab from human cells—contained an array of neural and other cell types found in the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the brain involved in language, emotion, reasoning, and other high-level mental processes. They are providing insights into the brain and uncovering differences that may contribute to autism in some people.
Key differences in male and female mice brains provide new insights into how sex determines the mechanisms by which distinct synapses monitor and regulate dopamine signaling. The impact of sex differences is particularly pronounced when the mice express a human genetic variant found in boys with either ADHD or autism. Behavioral generalizations across the sexes may limit diagnosis of mental illness, especially if one sex translates alterations into outward signs such as hyperactivity and aggression vs. more internal manifestations such as learning, memory and mood, even when the same molecular pathology is at work.
Dr. Daniel Geschwind was awarded the National Academy of Medicine’s top annual prize in mental health in recognition of his pioneering research and leadership in autism genetics.
Can you teach an old drug new tricks? Although drug treatments for the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are not currently available, could an existing drug provide a new treatment, even if it previously had no association with ASD?
The Autism Center of Excellence will lead a global network of research projects studying the interplay of genetics and environmental factors. One aim is to identify modifiable factors to improve lives of people living with autism.
Results of a small, but unique research study, led by researchers from the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai and published online in Human Genetics and Genomic Advances, suggest that low-dose ketamine is generally safe, well-tolerated and effective to treat clinical symptoms in children diagnosed with ADNP syndrome (also known as Helsmoortel-VanDerAa syndrome), a rare neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in the activity dependent neuroprotective protein (ADNP) gene.
Irvine, Calif., Sept. 1, 2022 – Anxiety, autism, schizophrenia and Tourette syndrome each have their own distinguishing characteristics, but one factor bridging these and most other mental disorders is circadian rhythm disruption, according to a team of neuroscience, pharmaceutical sciences and computer science researchers at the University of California, Irvine.
A new study published by a team of psychologists suggests that the diagnosis of autism could be improved by considering the differences between how women and men experience and act upon their emotions.
In an Australian first, South Australia has appointed a new Assistant Minister for Autism, tasked to increase autism supports in public primary schools. This could not have come at a more urgent time as new research from the University of South Australia shows that parents world-wide report a lack of awareness and understanding of the unique learning needs of autistic children across all levels of mainstream school.
The latest research and expert commentary on the monkeypox outbreak.
Measuring how the eyes’ pupils change in response to light—known as the pupillary light reflex—could potentially be used to screen for autism in young children, according to a study conducted at Washington State University.
In a series of articles published in the journal Nature Genetics, researchers used data from the SPARK (Simons Powering Autism Research) research cohort, which was created to advance our understanding of the complex genetics of autism and includes genetic data from nearly 43,000 people with autism.
Total of 252 genes cited, providing insights on how mutations might result in developmental disorder and potential targets for treatment
According to the researchers, improving the perceptual capabilities of people with autism is a difficult challenge, requiring long and tedious training along with the difficulty that characterizes autism to generalize learning to other areas.
Despite a federal mandate requiring access to early intervention programs (EIP) for children with disabilities, fewer than half of autistic children in four New Jersey counties received services before 36 months of age, according to a Rutgers study.
Key takeaways: • Just like the real thing. The stem cell–derived interneurons, which play a role in sensations like touch and pain, are indistinguishable from their real-life counterparts in the body. • Tomorrow’s therapies. In addition to potential treatments for injury-related sensation loss, the discovery could lead to new methods for screening drugs for chronic pain. • Moving forward. While stem cells from mice were used in the research, scientists are now working to replicate the findings with human cells.
People with neurodevelopmental disabilities are often not given the tools to create romantic relationships in a meaningful, safe way. This puts them at risk for sexual abuse. A new educational program, tested in partnership with the UC Davis MIND Institute, may help foster healthy, romantic relationships.
The UC Davis MIND Institute’s annual Summer Institute on Neurodevelopmental Disabilities is focused on strategies to support individuals with ADHD, Down syndrome, autism and more as they prepare for life after high school. The free, virtual event will take place Aug. 3 from 9:00 a.m. – 1:15 p.m. and is open to all.
Researchers documented a shift toward more representation for adults in popular portrayals of autism, which have historically focused on children.
Irvine, Calif., June 27, 2022 — Supported by a $20 million gift from Joe C. Wen and his family, the UCI Health outpatient clinical facility at the new UCI Health–Irvine complex will bring specialty clinical expertise closer to coastal and south Orange County residents on the UCI campus. “The Joe C. Wen & Family Center for Advanced Care at UCI Health–Irvine will play a special role in the life of south Orange County because of our unique ability to marshal all the resources of a comprehensive research university in support of delivering the best and most up-to-date care,” said UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman.
The reactivity of a mother’s autoantibodies to specific fetal brain protein patterns may predict the child’s diagnosis with a type of autism known as MAR ASD. MAR ASD was present in around 20% of kids with autism in Arkansas and Philadelphia samples and was linked to more significant autistic traits.
In the first study of its kind, researchers found that recordings from the retina could identify distinct signals for both Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) providing a potential biomarker for each condition.
Background: Social media provide a window onto the circulation of ideas in everyday folk psychiatry, revealing the themes and issues discussed both by the public and by various scientific communities. Objective: This...
Fentanyl, a mu-opioid receptor agonist, is one of the most commonly used analgesics in the hospital and may induce long-lasting behavioral and somatosensory impairment in rodents.
Here are some of the latest articles that have been added to the Aging channel on Newswise, a free source for journalists.
Analyzing brain stem cells of patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Rutgers scientists have found evidence of irregularities in very early brain development that may contribute to the neuropsychiatric disorder.
Differences in behavior among people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are closely related to differences in neuroanatomy – the shape of a brain – a team of Boston College neuroscientists report today in the journal Science. This discovery could help to understand the causes of ASD, and to develop personalized interventions.
UC San Diego researchers report significant progress in understanding how the combined effects of rare mutations and common genetic variation in determining whether a child will develop ASD and its consequential effects.
Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have applied a novel stem cell model to map disease risk variants in human neurons, which could help provide insights into the biological mechanisms that underlie neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia.
A new study looking at the impact of an autism assistance dog for children and their parents has made an unexpected discovery: the dog has expanded their world, literally, giving them the confidence to visit a lot more places.
Based on the positive results of a new pilot study offering personalized aquatic occupational therapy for 19 autistic children, researchers at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine will expand the program to include 36 autistic children over the next year.
Autistic individuals are more likely to have chronic mental and physical health conditions, suggests new research from the University of Cambridge. Autistic individuals also report lower quality healthcare than others.
For the first time, scientists have found that brain differences in the visual brain systems of infants who later are diagnosed with autism are associated with inherited genetic factors.
In an analysis of reviews published between 2009 and 2020 that assessed therapeutic or educational interventions for very young children with or at high likelihood for autism, researchers found that certain types of interventions—called naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions, developmental interventions, and behavioral interventions—can provide benefits, but there were significant limitations in the quality of the evidence and many differences in how studies were performed.
Here are some of the latest articles added to the Behavioral Science channel on Newswise.
University of North Carolina School of Medicine scientists, who report their results in the journal eLife, devised an experimental, gene-therapy-like technique to restore the normal activity of the gene deficient in people with Pitt-Hopkins syndrome.
An international research group led by Professor Toru Takumi (Senior Visiting Scientist, RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research) and Researcher Chia-wen Lin at Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine has shown that idiopathic autism*1 is caused by epigenetic*2 abnormalities in hematopoietic cells during fetal development, which results in immune dysregulation in the brain and gut.
UC San Diego scientists use lab-grown human brain tissue to identify neural abnormalities in Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome and show gene therapy tools can rescue neural structure and function.
Research led by King’s College London and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust has analysed factors associated with self-harm in over 111,000 adolescents aged 11-17 years old.
As many as nine out of 10 autistic women in France report have suffered sexual violence, shows a new study in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.