Human cortical organoids forge functional circuits in rat brains
The transplanted cells integrate into living animals’ neural circuitry and influence behavior.
The transplanted cells integrate into living animals’ neural circuitry and influence behavior.
A new technique for building a ‘brain in a dish’ reveals how neurons move to their proper places during fetal development.
Probing the function of a protein in a calcium signaling pathway may lead to a diagnostic test for autism and a path toward treatments.
Sergiu Pasca was among the first to model autism with neurons from affected individuals, a feat that could reveal the biochemical roots of some forms of autism.
A number of autism risk factors converge on one cellular pathway: abnormal remodeling of the cell’s structural systems through the signaling protein Rho, says SFARI’s associate director for research, Alan Packer.
Neurons from people with Timothy syndrome, and from mouse and rat models of the disorder, have defects in the growth of their branches, according to a study published 13 January in Nature Neuroscience.
Mitochondrial deficits may account for the range of symptoms and neurological deficits seen in autism and explain why it preferentially affects boys, says Douglas Wallace.
The nonprofit Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle plans to make neurons from stem cells derived from people with a number of different disorders. The resource, described 25 September at a conference in New York, will be available to all scientists.
SAGE Labs has announced a new partnership with the autism science and advocacy organization Autism Speaks to fund the creation of three new rat models of autism.
Understanding the function of neuronal circuits, specifically microcircuits in the prefrontal cortex and elsewhere in the brain, will play a major role in translating research findings into new autism treatments, says Vikaas Sohal.