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The 2024 Autism Science Year in Review

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New Technologies, New Data, New Solutions

This year’s progress in autism research includes promising findings, clarifications, explanations, and the uncovering of new avenues of inquiry. The focus is now on personalized medicine: finding the right treatment for the right person at the right time through targeted interventions. Advances in technology and genetic testing are opening new avenues for therapeutics, rapid drug testing, and improved differentiation of subgroups of autism.

2024 Autism Science Review
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Little Brains Answer Big Questions

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This week we talk to Sergiu Pasca from Stanford University. He has revolutionized the field of understanding the field of brain development in neurodevelopmental disorders and just published a new study which examined the genetic influence of brain assembly. The way he does this is quite remarkable. His lab uses assembloids, which are many many many stem cells which form into a tiny brain. He explains what an interneuron is, why it is important for brain function, and how genetics can influence how these neurons work. This way the development of the brain from the first cell can be tracked and even manipulated to understand what happens in autism, and what therapies might be the most helpful to target these interneurons. Thank you Dr. Pasca.

Open access! https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37758944/

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Genetic confounding plus organoids

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You heard it in the news this week, and we discuss it on this week’s ASF podcast. Can you make little brains in a dish then make them better by providing them a real structured live neural environment? Can these organoids integrate with a live brain and be functional in vivo? The answers are: yes! Learn more from a new study published this week. Also, what the h**l is genetic confounding and how can it address many of the controversies of genetic vs. the environment? Sometimes genes that predispose to a disorder also predispose to environmental factors leading to that disorder. There is always room for both. Here are the links I promised:

https://www.fhi.no/en/studies/moba/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35793100/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05277-w