Mice completely deficient for Dvl1, one of three mouse homologs of the Drosophila segment polarity gene Dishevelled, were created by gene targeting. Dvl1-deficient mice are viable, fertile, and structurally normal. Surprisingly, these mice exhibited reduced social interaction, including differences in whisker trimming, deficits in nest-building, less huddling contact during home cage sleeping, ...

Mounting clinical evidence suggests that abnormalities of social engagement in children with autism are present even during infancy. However, direct experimental documentation of these abnormalities is still limited. In this case report of a 15-month-old infant with autism, we measured visual fixation patterns to both naturalistic and ambiguous social stimuli: video scenes of a caregiver and po...

Background: Autism is characterized by difficulties in social interaction, communication, and repetitive behaviors; with different degrees of severity in each of the core areas. Haploinsufficiency and point mutations of RAI1 are associated with Smith-Magenis syndrome (SMS), a genetic condition that scores within the autism spectrum range for social responsiveness and communication, and is chara...

Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder that involves social, language, sensory, and motor deficits, behavioral abnormalities, and may also be associated with mental retardation. Kanner coined the term “autism” in 1943 to characterize a group of children in whom he identified a complex set of characteristics that clustered together, including abnormalities in social development, verbal and...

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by abnormal reciprocal social interactions, communication deficits, and repetitive behaviors with restricted interests. Autism-relevant phenotypes in the inbred mouse strain BTBR T+tf/J (BTBR) offer translational tools to discover biological mechanisms underlying unusual mouse behaviors analogous to symptoms of autism. Two of the most consis...

Autism is a disorder characterized by severe impairments in social and communicative development, and by abnormalities in flexible behavior and imaginative thinking (American Psychiatric Association, 1987). In addition, these symptoms often have an onset in the first 3 years of life. The social and communicative abnormalities have recently been conceptualized as the result of abnormalities in t...

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) represent a complex group of behaviorally defined conditions with core deficits in social communication and the presence of repetitive and restrictive behaviors. To date, neuropathological studies have failed to identify pathognomonic cellular features for ASDs and there remains a fundamental disconnection between the complex clinical aspects of ASDs and the und...

purpose: the association between deafness and ocular abnormalities is well established however the nature and prevalence of these problems are diverse across the globe. methods: a team of optometrists and social worker visited one hundred fifty eight deaf boy students at their schools and those who needed more detailed evaluation were referred to the farabi eye hospital's strabismus clinic...