News

The largest search for autism genes to date, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has implicated components of the brain's glutamate chemical messenger system and a previously overlooked site on chromosome 11.

The brain's fear hub Likely becomes abnormally small in the most severely socially impaired males with autism spectrum disorders, researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and National Institute on Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have discovered.

When autism was first named in 1943 by Dr. Leo Kanner, it was thought to be a rare condition, occurring in fewer than three children in 10,000. By 1996, the estimated incidence of autism was about 12 cases per 10,000 children—not exactly the rate of a rare disorder.

A version of a gene has been linked to autism in families that have more than one child with the disorder. Inheriting two copies of this version more than doubled a child's risk of developing an autism spectrum disorder, scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have discovered.

A recent study provides evidence that autism affects the functioning of virtually the entire brain, and is not limited to the brain areas involved with social interactions, communication behaviors, and reasoning abilities, as had been previously thought. The study, conducted by scientists in a research network supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), found that autism also affects a broad array of skills and abilities, including those involved with sensory perception, movement, and memory.

Researchers have found in two studies that autism may involve a lack of connections and coordination in separate areas of the brain.

In contrast to people who do not have autism, people with autism remember letters of the alphabet in a part of the brain that ordinarily processes shapes, according to a study from a collaborative program of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health.

A team of researchers has discovered a gene for Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, a disorder consisting of mental retardation, heart defects and a number of physical abnormalities.

Newborns whose mothers drank alcohol heavily during pregnancy had damage to the nerves in the arms and legs, according to a study by researchers at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National Institutes of Health.

Two experimental compounds prevent one of the cellular events that is a likely contributor to fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), according to a new study supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

Scientists funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have developed a new mouse model for Rett syndrome - a heartbreaking disorder which gradually robs apparently healthy infants of their language, mental functioning, and ability to interact with others.

Children in America are less likely to die during infancy than they were in previous years, less likely to smoke in 8th or 10th grade, and less likely to give birth during adolescence, according to the 6th annual report, America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2002.

Researchers funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have come one step closer to identifying one of the causes of previously unexplained mental retardation.

The latest in a series of studies on secretin has failed to show that giving the digestive hormone to children with autism alleviates symptoms of the disorder, according to a study funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

A series of fact sheets describing the latest research findings on autism is now available from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

In collaboration with their European colleagues, scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have come one step closer to determining the genetic basis for autism.

Researchers funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health have completed the first successful effort to introduce a new gene into the unfertilized eggs of rhesus monkeys, a member of the family of mammals that includes human beings.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have identified a gene that may predispose people to developing autism.

Researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development report in the current issue of Alcoholism: Cinical and Experimental Research (Volume 24, Number 5) results from the first study to determine whether future drinking may be predicted by response to stress during infancy.

The first of a number of studies sponsored by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has shown that treatment with a synthetic version of the hormone secretin offered no more benefit for children with autism than did treatment with a placebo.