Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit a trend for elevated GM-CSF compared to healthy controls (Ashwood et al., 2011), social deficits are reported in ASD and in the CSS F2 animals (Babb et al., 2014), and early life stress in mothers is associated with an increased risk for autism in offspring (Roberts et al., 2013, 2014). The gene discussed is CSF2; the disease is autism spectrum disorder.