In a methodological first, researchers in Denmark have peered simultaneously into the dopamine system, energy metabolism, and neural communication of autistic adults, finding that autistic brains carry more dopamine D2 receptors than neurotypical ones — and that these receptors appear to work differently. The discovery does not explain the origins of autism, nor does it offer a diagnostic key, but it places dopamine closer to the center of autism's neurobiological story than science had previously charted. It also opens a quiet but consequential question: might autism and ADHD, so often compan