Making your brain social

(European Molecular Biology Laboratory) Scientists have identified, for the first time, a way in which the decreased functional connectivity seen in the brain of many people with autism can come about: it can be caused by cells called microglia failing to trim connections between neurons, researchers from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory Monterotondo, the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia and La Sapienza University demonstrate in a study published today in Nature Neuroscience.