Oxytocin, cemented in the popular imagination as the “love molecule,” could serve as a treatment for some autistic people who naturally have low levels of the hormone, researchers say.

The investigational drug arbaclofen makes autistic people’s brains respond to a visual task more like non-autistic people’s brains do.

In mice with a mutated copy of SHANK3, stress induces social deficits and alters gene expression in certain excitatory neurons. But eliminating a stress-related protein that regulates SHANK3 restores typical social functioning in the animals.

For Spectrum’s fourth annual book, we offer a guide to prevalence estimates.

Researchers requested the retraction of their study linking low vitamin A levels to sleep troubles in autistic children after discovering “fundamental errors” in their data.

In this edition of By the Numbers, we discuss how translation alters a screening tool’s accuracy, the closing racial gap in autism prevalence numbers, and the preponderance of autism without intellectual disability.

Developmental delay, intellectual disability and behavioral issues are common among people who have mutations in MYT1L, a gene with strong ties to autism.

In this week’s Community Newsletter, we look at a study that asks just how much therapists know about autism, as well as reactions to a highly controversial stem cell trial.

Most working scientists aren’t optimistic about their career prospects, according to a Nature survey; expecting passion may be detrimental in academia; and there are new funding opportunities on the horizon, with upcoming deadlines.

Mice missing a copy of the gene SENP1 have atypical social behavior likely due to a signaling imbalance in the retrosplenial cortex.