Autism research breakthrough?

Researchers have pinpointed a significant factor in the development of autism spectrum disorders.

UC San Francisco scientists discovered that the disruption of a single type of cell in a particular region of the brain, during a particular time in the brain’s development, could be a key to autism’s emergence, according to a UCSF press release. New gene-sequencing methods have allowed researchers to zero in on genes most strongly associated with autism and investigate their effects during brain development.

The research implicated the brain’s cortical projection neurons in the prefrontal cortex, while the time period in which autism appears to develop is between 10 and 24 weeks after conception.