New Clues to Autism’s Cause

Correction appended: July 15, 2008 What exactly is going awry in the brains of people who have autism The answer is very slowly coming into focus. A paper published in the current issue of Science by researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and members of the Boston-based Autism Consortium identifies five new autism-related gene defects. Already, more than a dozen genetic defects have been found to be associated with autism spectrum disorders, which affect about 1 in 150 children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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