A review of recent reports on autism: 1000 studies published in 2007. (Epilepsy Behav. 2008)

Conversational Behaviors in Youth with High-functioning ASD and Asperger Syndrome. (J Autism Dev Disord. 2008)

Fathering Autism “Hotez's feelings as a parent of an autistic child might seem unremarkable, except that he also happens to be one of the country's more prominent vaccine researchers. … "It is not one disorder; it is at least several, and there are probably hundreds," acknowledged Andrew Gerber, a Columbia University autism expert. "There are autisms-- there is an autism spectrum disorder." … Rachel's family took her to see one of the country's top autism experts when she was 2 1/2 . She received her first diagnosis: "pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified," a catchall term. The family felt adrift. Rachel was placing an extraordinary strain on everyone. There were financial worries. "Rachel was more work than all the other kids combined," Peter Hotez said. The illness brought most normal family activity to a halt. "We didn't go out to dinner for a decade." As Rachel missed developmental milestone after developmental milestone, Ann Hotez did what tens of thousands of other mothers would do in her situation: She blamed herself. She started wondering whether she had done something during her pregnancy with Rachel: Was it the tuna fish she had eaten? “

Levels of emotional awareness and autism: an fMRI study. (Soc Neurosci. 2008)

Sleep Patterns in Preschool-Age Children With Autism, Developmental Delay, and Typical Development. (J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2008)

Autism Cause: Brain Development Genes? Genes Missing in Autism Needed for Learning-Triggered Brain Growth “The good news is that a surprisingly large number of these mutant genes affect the on/off switches that control experience-triggered brain development. That's much better than missing the genes themselves, says study leader Christopher A. Walsh, MD, PhD, chief of genetics at Children's Hospital Boston and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "We are encouraged that some of these mutations do not seem to completely remove the gene altogether, but instead disrupt its on/off switches," Walsh tells WebMD. "That does offer hope we may be able to figure out other ways of activating the gene."“

Common Mechanisms May Underlie Autism's Seemingly Diverse Mutations: Study Implicates Disruption of Genes Regulated by Early Experience “The mutations may disrupt specific genes that are vital to the developing brain, and which are turned on and off by experience-triggered neuronal activity. A research team led by Christopher Walsh, M.D., Ph.D., and Eric Morrow, M.D., Ph.D., of Harvard University, found two large sections missing on chromosomes in people with autism and traced them to likely inherited mutations in such genes regulated by neuronal activity. They report their findings in the July 11, 2008 issue of Science. … “The emerging picture of the genetics of autism is quite surprising. There appear to be many separate mutations involved, with each family having a different genetic cause,” explained NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. “The one unifying observation from this new report is that all of the relevant mutations could disrupt the formation of vital neural connections during a critical period when experience is shaping the developing brain.””

Identifying Autism Loci and Genes by Tracing Recent Shared Ancestry (Science 2008) “ … suggest that defective regulation of gene expression after neural activity may be a mechanism common to seemingly diverse autism mutations.”