http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are among the most heritable of all neuropsychiatric conditions. Yet, most genetic links to ASD found in recent years have involved de novo mutations, which are not passed from parent to child, but instead arise spontaneously. While these mutations help explain how ASD develops in a fraction of cases, they don't help us understand why autism so often runs in families. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-scientists-inherited-autism.html Genetics Mon, 04 Feb 2013 07:31:53 EST news279185482 While autism clearly runs in some families, few inherited genetic causes have been found. A major reason is that these causes are so varied that it's hard to find enough people with a given mutation to establish a clear pattern. Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital have pinpointed several inherited mutations—among the first to be identified—through an unusual approach: using whole-exome sequencing to study large Middle Eastern families with autism. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-whole-exome-sequencing-inherited-mutations-autism.html Autism spectrum disorders Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:00:01 EST news278160862