Researchers at the Allen Institute for Brain Science have created a comprehensive set of DNA probes that highlight the expression patterns of individual genes.

They will use them to study the expression of approximately 25 genes in samples of postmortem brain tissue. They will focus on the prefrontal cortex, one of the brain regions most affected by abnormal early overgrowth, found in very young children with the disorder.

Previous studies have only been able to look at the expression of a handful of genes at a time. These probes can provide a wealth of information by revealing the expression of many genes simultaneously.