Prebiotics — nutrients that promote the growth of some beneficial gut bacteria — can influence brain chemistry and behavior. New findings suggest prebiotics as treatments for people with neurological disorders, say Sarkis Mazmanian and Gil Sharon.
The risk of certain autism spectrum disorders is highest in firstborn children and declines in each additional sibling born to the same mother, reports a large Finnish study published 28 January in Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology.
By matching the genes expressed in particular cell types with those linked to a disorder, researchers may be able to identify the cell types implicated in the disorder, they report in a study published 22 January in the Journal of Neuroscience. They use this method to link interneurons and immune cells to autism.
A temporary shortage of microglia — immune cells in the brain that prune unnecessary neural connections — in infancy can have long-lasting effects on brain circuits and behavior, according to a study published in Nature Neuroscience on 2 February.
Two large Scandinavian studies confirm the long-standing theory that older men have a higher risk of fathering children with autism, but they disagree on how a mother’s age drives risk of the disorder.
A strain of bacteria that lives in some people’s guts alleviates obsessive behaviors, anxiety and other symptoms in mice that model autism, researchers report today in Cell. The finding supports the intriguing link between the gut, brain and behavior.
A mother’s exposure to infection can exacerbate the effects of a genetic mutation and contribute to autism or schizophrenia in her pups, suggests an unpublished mouse study presented Wednesday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
Two new studies bolster the emerging idea that microglia, cells that were long dismissed as passive soldiers of the brain’s immune system, are in fact actively involved in shoring up connections between neurons. The unpublished work was presented Sunday at the 2013 Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego.
Watch the complete replay of Beth Stevens discussing the link between immune cells in the brain, neuronal junctions and autism. Submit follow-up questions.
Researchers have mined the medical records of more than 100 million people and found close to 3,000 associations between single-gene diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, and complex genetic disorders such as autism. The results were published 26 September in Cell.