In a ray of hope for people suffering from autism, researchers have discovered neuron populations in a region of the mouse brain that controls whether the animal engages in social behavior or asocial repetitive self-grooming behavior.
Autism has also been linked to dysfunction of the amygdale, a brain structure involved in processing emotions.
Humans with autism often show a reduced frequency of social interactions and an increased tendency to engage in repetitive solitary behavior.
Lead researcher David J Anderson, a Biology professor at the California Institute of Technology and his colleagues discovered two intermingled but distinct population of neurons in the amygdale.
One "social neurons" population promotes social behaviour such as mating, fighting or social grooming while the other "self-grooming neurons" population controls repetitive self-grooming - an asocial behavior.
To study the relationship between these two cell types and their associated behavior, researchers used a technique called ontogenetic.
Anderson's team was able to selectively switch on the neurons associated with social behavior and those linked with a social behavior.
"Surprisingly, these two groups of neurons appear to interfere with each other's functioned: the activation of 'social neurons' inhibits self-grooming behavior while the activation of 'self-grooming neurons' inhibits social behavior," Anderson noted.
In autism, there is a decrease in social interactions and there is often an increase in repetitive, sometimes asocial or self-oriented behavior - a phenomenon known as perseveration.
"By stimulating a particular set of neurons, we are both inhibiting social interactions and promoting these persistent behaviors," Anderson said.
If we find the right population of neurons, it might be possible to override the genetic component of a behavioral disorder like autism by just changing the activity of the brain circuits, concluded the study that was reported in the journal Cell.
0 comments:
Post a Comment