A breakthrough has been made on the study of autism through a research conducted by a team at UT Southwestern led by professor and chairman of neuroscience Thomas Sudhof, M.D. At the annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmachology, Sudhof and his team debuted their research of the creation of mice that, through gene mutation, now possess what is believed to be the first accurate model of human autism not connected with a wider scale of psychiatric syndromes.

Sudhof and his team managed this by replacing the mice's healthy neurologin-3 gene with a mutated strain associated with human autism. Since little is still known about the disorder, the new animal model for autism will greatly aid in allowing more study to be done, enabling researchers and investigators to better understand the mental disease.

At the moment, behavioral therapy is still seen as the best treatment for autism. But with this new animal autism model successfully developed, it will aid in research being done and further the progression and treatment of the disorder; paving the way for better findings to be made to help in discovering new approaches in treatment of autism.