http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. For the first time, researchers have linked autism in a mouse model of the disease with abnormalities in specific regions of the animals' chromosomes. The regions contain genes associated with aberrant brain development and activity. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-autism-mice-linked-genetics.html Autism spectrum disorders Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:00:02 EST news285245278 If you think giving someone the cold shoulder inflicts pain only on them, beware. A new study shows that individuals who deliberately shun another person are equally distressed by the experience. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-girls-ostracism-ways.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 05 Mar 2013 04:01:20 EST news281678462 The health benefits of 'water clubs' in care homes for the elderly, where residents gather together regularly to drink water , owe as least as much to the social nature of the activity as to the value of drinking water itself, an investigation by psychologists has shown. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-group-interaction-elderly-key-significant.html Health Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:51:33 EST news274099871 Animals that are socially isolated for prolonged periods make less myelin in the region of the brain responsible for complex emotional and cognitive behavior, researchers at the University at Buffalo and Mt. Sinai School of Medicine report in Nature Neuroscience online. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-brain-plasticity-social-isolation-disrupts.html Neuroscience Sun, 11 Nov 2012 13:00:40 EST news271860226 Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have been able to switch on, and then switch off, social-behavior deficits in mice that resemble those seen in people with autism and schizophrenia, thanks to a technology that allows scientists to precisely manipulate nerve activity in the brain. In synchrony with this experimentally induced socially aberrant behavior, the mice exhibited a brain-wave pattern called gamma oscillation that has been associated with autism and schizophrenia in humans, the researchers say. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-social-deficits-autism-schizophrenia-mice.html Medical research Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:30:26 EST news230992205 Hundreds of small genetic variations are associated with autism spectrum disorders, including an area of DNA that may be a key to understanding why humans are social animals, according to a multi-site collaborative study led by researchers at Yale University. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-genetic-keys-autism.html Genetics Wed, 08 Jun 2011 12:00:01 EST news226752958