Songbird system may provide new treatment options for children with autism
Inactivating a gene in young songbirds that are closely linked with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevents the birds from forming memories necessary to accurately reproduce their fathers songs, a new study led by UT Southwestern shows.
The findings, published online today in
Science Advances, may help explain the deficits in speech and language that often accompany ASD and could eventually lead to new treatments specifically targeting this aspect of the disorder.
Study leader Todd Roberts, Ph.D., associate professor of neuroscience and a member of the Peter O Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at UT Southwestern, explains that the vocalizations that comprise a central part of human communication are relatively unique among the animal world – not just for their complexity, but in the way they re passed down from caregivers to offspring.
Credit: UT Southwestern Medical Center
DALLAS - Feb. 3, 2021 - Inactivating a gene in young songbirds that s closely linked with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevents the birds from forming memories necessary to accurately reproduce their fathers songs, a new study led by UT Southwestern shows.
The findings, published online today in
Science Advances, may help explain the deficits in speech and language that often accompany ASD and could eventually lead to new treatments specifically targeting this aspect of the disorder.
Study leader Todd Roberts, Ph.D., associate professor of neuroscience and a member of the Peter O Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at UT Southwestern, explains that the vocalizations that comprise a central part of human communication are relatively unique among the animal world - not just for their complexity, but in the way they re passed down from caregivers to offspring. Songbirds such as zebra finches also learn complex vocalizations from caregivers (songs a
About a decade ago, a group of neurons known as “time cells” was discovered in rats. These cells appear to play a unique role in recording when events take place, allowing the brain to correctly mark the order of what happens in an episodic memory.
Located in the brain’s hippocampus, these cells show a characteristic activity pattern while the animals are encoding and recalling events, explains Bradley Lega, M.D., associate professor of neurological surgery at UTSW and senior author of the PNAS study. By firing in a reproducible sequence, they allow the brain to organize when events happen, Lega says. The timing of their firing is controlled by 5 Hz brain waves, called theta oscillations, in a process known as precession.
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A protein that wreaks havoc in the nerves and heart when it clumps together can prevent the formation of toxic protein clumps associated with Alzheimerâs disease, a new study led by a UT Southwestern researcher shows. The findings, published recently in the
Journal of Biological Chemistry, could lead to new treatments for this brain-ravaging condition, which currently has no truly effective therapies and no cure.
Researchers have long known that sticky plaques of a protein known as amyloid beta are a hallmark of Alzheimerâs and are toxic to brain cells. As early as the mid-1990s, other proteins were discovered in these plaques as well.