Big surges in new autism diagnoses among young adults, as well a rise in diagnoses for girls and young women, have driven a near-tripling of U.S. autism cases in just over a decade, researchers report.

People with autism are typically diagnosed by clinical observation and assessment. To deconstruct the clinical decision process, which is often subjective and difficult to describe, researchers used a large language model (LLM) to synthesize the behaviors…

  

While most people become less generous towards strangers, autistic adults maintain high levels of prosocial behavior regardless of social distance. New research confirms this generosity is intentional, not a byproduct of repetitive responding.

Brains of autistic individuals have fewer of a specific kind of glutamate receptor, supporting an idea that autism is driven by a signaling imbalance. The