Common ground in autism and epilepsy

A pair of studies has identified rare genomic copy number variants associated with both autism and epilepsy, suggesting there might be common mechanisms behind both diseases.^1,2

The most immediate application of the findings could be to help in the early diagnosis and stratification of patients for deeper genetic studies. At the same time, the studies add support to the relatively recent hypothesisthat these and other neuropsychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and mental retardation may have a common molecular basis...