John N. Constantino is a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist and chief of behavioral and mental Health at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, as well as professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine. He is an international leader in autism trait phenotyping, sex differences in autism, and endophenotypic analyses.

John Constantino
Chief of behavioral and mental health
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
From this contributor
Autism is more heritable in boys than in girls
If boys have greater inherited liability for autism, the female protective effect may not fully explain the sex difference in prevalence.

Autism is more heritable in boys than in girls
Q&A with John Constantino: Solving the biomarker conundrum
Biological factors that reflect autism’s roots may differ from those that influence how severe the condition is. Failure to make a distinction has stymied the search for biomarkers.

Q&A with John Constantino: Solving the biomarker conundrum
Traits of other conditions may spur autism
Early features of other conditions may contribute to autism itself

Traits of other conditions may spur autism
Japanese spectrum
Researchers studying autism prevalence should take into account the continuous nature of autism symptoms in the general population, says John Constantino.
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Null and Noteworthy: Neurons tracking sequences don’t fire in order
Instead, neurons encode the position of sequential items in working memory based on when they fire during ongoing brain wave oscillations—a finding that challenges a long-standing theory.
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Shane Liddelow and his collaborators identified the factors that transform astrocytes from their helpful to harmful form. Their work is a great choice if you want to teach students about glial cell types, cell culture, gene expression or protein measurement.

How to teach this paper: ‘Neurotoxic reactive astrocytes are induced by activated microglia,’ by Liddelow et al. (2017)
Shane Liddelow and his collaborators identified the factors that transform astrocytes from their helpful to harmful form. Their work is a great choice if you want to teach students about glial cell types, cell culture, gene expression or protein measurement.
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Astrocytes sense neuromodulators to orchestrate neuronal activity and shape behavior
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