A man got very excited when he came upon the poster detailing Heather Garman’s study at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, D.C. That’s because he had autism spectrum disorder and co-occurring depression – the type of patient Garman, a PhD candidate in the integrative neuroscience program at New York’s Stony Brook University, is studying in her research.

According to her preliminary results, individuals who have both autism spectrum disorder and depression are different than those who have just one or the other – and inflammation of a certain protein may be one of the causes. There isn’t treatment for these individuals currently, nor is much known about why or how depression in autism spectrum disorder develops.

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