MTOR and autism: Tang et al. [33] demonstrated that reductions in mTOR-dependent autophagy lead to autistic-like synaptic pruning deficits in mice, and Zhang et al. [34] reported that valproic acid-induced autism rat models exhibit decreased autophagy and increased dendritic spine densities in conjunction with increased activity of the Notch pathway, which positively regulates mTOR [35–37].