Carlos Portera-Cailliau plans to investigate how brain circuits are altered in animal models of autism and intellectual disability. Portera-Cailliau and his colleagues at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) aim to use state-of-the-art microscopy techniques to study brain areas that, in experimental models of autism, are important for emotion, cognition, creativity, learning and memory. The group’s experiments are designed to provide insight into how subtle alterations in brain wiring and connectivity can result in neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism.

André Fenton and his group at New York University hypothesize that a common pathophysiology underlies the failures of cognitive flexibility that are characteristic of autism. Fenton aims to investigate the widely held ‘discoordination’ hypothesis that in individuals with autism, the neural computations within and between networks of cells that depend upon precisely coordinated neural activity are impaired.

Learning to automatize actions and form habits is critical for mastering everyday skills and activities such as riding a bike, speaking or writing. However, having overly automatized actions can lead to an overabundance of stereotyped, repetitive behaviors and to lack of control or ability to switch between habits and novel behavioral patterns.

Numerous genetic pathways have been implicated in autism, and the effects on neural function of genetic variations in these pathways have been studied. However, it has been difficult to identify how these pathways converge to a common level of neural function. It remains unclear how similarities in autism across patients with different genetic variations occurs.

Significant progress has been made on identifying and characterizing the molecular and genetic changes that contribute to the altered patterns of brain development and connectivity in autism. We do not yet understand how these cellular changes alter brain circuits or how changes in those circuits cause the behavioral manifestations of autism.