David Ginty and colleagues have identified mechanisms through which peripheral loss of ASD-associated genes affect behaviors in mice and identify a potential peripherally restricted therapy to treat tactile over-reactivity and select ASD-related behaviors.

Matthew Goodwin, Matthew Siegel and colleagues found that data from a wearable biosensor can be used to accurately predict aggressive behavior up to one minute before it occurs.

Alessandro Gozzi and colleagues found that Shank3-deficient mice have disrupted frontocortical functional connectivity, which is associated with impaired communication and social behaviors.

Kevin Bender, Stephan Sanders and colleagues show that there is an unexpectedly critical role for the autism risk gene Scn2a, which encodes the sodium channel Na_V1.2, in postnatal dendritic excitability and synaptic function in mice.

Paul Sternberg and colleagues establish an initial pipeline in C. elegans to screen autism-associated missense mutations for functional effects.

Susan Bookheimer and colleagues show that the degree of sensory overresponsivity in individuals with autism may be driven by distinct patterns of connectivity between the prefrontal cortex and amygdala.

Anthony-Samuel LaMantia, Thomas Maynard and colleagues show that a mouse model of 22q11.2 deletion syndrome has fewer long-distance cortico-cortical connections, which is caused in part by mitochondrial dysfunction.

Two studies from Brigitta Monz, Richard Houghton and colleagues provide examples of the effectiveness of SPARK’s research match program to rapidly recruit thousands of individuals for the large-scale testing of research questions.