25 April 2012 Last updated at 14:00 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

The prospect of a drug to treat autism has been raised after symptoms of the condition were reduced in experiments on mice that were performed by the US National Institutes of Health.

There is no cure for the condition.

The results published in Science Translational Medicine showed increased social skills and less repetitive behaviour in animals taking a drug.

However, treatments which work in mice frequently fail in humans and potential medication would be years away.

Autism spectrum disorder is thought to affect around 1% of children. It ranges from mild to severe and symptoms include social problems, delayed language and repetitive movements such as hand tapping.

Autism is mainly treated with specialist education, speech and behavioural therapies.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health said autism had been thought to be untreatable by drugs. The theory was that any problems would be "hardwired" into the brain.

It will be a long time until these findings can be translated for human patients

However, they said there was evidence that in some cases autism could be down to the way cells in the brain communicate with each other at synapses, the gaps between individual brain cells.

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Prospect of 'autism drug' raised