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Many genetic variants have been linked to autism, but only a handful are potent enough to induce the disorder on their own. Among these variants, mutations in a gene called Shank3 are among the most common, occurring in about 0.5 percent of people with autism.

[...] “During critical windows of social and language learning, we reshape our connections to drive connectivity patterns that respond to rewards and language and social interactions,” he says. “If Shank is doing similar things in the mammalian brain, one could imagine potentially having those circuits form relatively normally early on, but if they fail to properly mature and form the proper number of connections, that could lead to a variety of behavioral defects.”