Unconventional optogenetics technique spurs long-lasting changes in neuronal activity
Conventional optogenetic manipulations to excite or inhibit neurons stop when the light switches off. A new approach makes the changes last.
Charting the structure and function of the brain’s many circuits may unravel autism’s mysteries.
Conventional optogenetic manipulations to excite or inhibit neurons stop when the light switches off. A new approach makes the changes last.
Postmortem brain samples from people with one of six conditions, including autism, show distinct signatures of over- and underexpression of immune genes.
Many autism-linked genes are somehow tied to cilia, the tiny hair-like sensors that stud a cell’s surface. But the question remains whether, and how, cilia differences contribute to the condition.
Such high expression levels may account for the condition’s sex bias, a new preprint suggests — but not everyone agrees with that logic.
Having an infection during pregnancy is tied to a small increase in the chances of having an autistic child, but the connection may not be causal.
A massive update to the MSSNG dataset gives qualified researchers ready access to explore autism’s genetic architecture on a cloud-based platform.
The approach could help test hypotheses about how atypical function of the brain’s immune cells contributes to autism.
The in-depth approach shows mutations in the autism-linked gene disrupt neuronal growth and communication, as well as mitochondrial gene expression.
A new method that merges tissue expansion, light-sheet microscopy and automated image segmentation can reconstruct neural circuits in about a week.
Faulty mTOR signaling, implicated in syndromic forms of autism, also hinders cells grown from people with idiopathic autism or autism-linked deletions on chromosome 16.