الصفحة 1
الصفحة 1
Novel mouse model for future autism research
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a set of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by a deficit in social behaviors and nonverbal interactions such as reduced eye contact, facial expression, and body gestures in the first 3 years of life. It is not a single disorder, and it is broadly considered to be a multi-factorial disorder resulting from genetic and non-genetic risk factors and their interaction. Genetic studies of ASD have identified mutations that interfere with typical neurodevelopment in utero through childhood. These complexes of genes have been involved in synaptogenesis and axon motility. Recent developments in neuroimaging studies have provided many important insights into the pathological changes that occur in the brain of patients with ASD in vivo. Especially, the role of amygdala, a major component of the limbic system and the affective loop of the cortico-striatothalamo-cortical circuit, in cognition and ASD has been proved in numerous neuropathological and neuroimaging studies.
Molecular Mechanisms of Synaptogenesis
Molecular Mechanisms of Synaptogenesis is a compilation of recent exciting findings that summarizes the ever-expanding knowledge of how neuronal contacts develop in the normal brain and how their functions are affected in mental disorders. In the last decade, advances in molecular and cellular biology, combined with the development of sophisticated fluorescence microscopy tools to visualize synapses in live neurons, have revealed many intriguing and unexpected findings regarding the dynamics of synapse formation. Studies by a number of researchers have identified several critical protein components of synapses and shown the time course of their arrival at the synapse. Several molecules serve to hold the synaptic contacts between nerve cells and regulate their function.
