WIKIMEDIA, NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGINGAs toddlers’ brains develop, they trim back the excess synapses among neurons, a process that continues through adolescence. Previous studies have suggested that synapse structure and density might be abnormal in people with autism and in animal models of the disorder.
A study published this month (August 14) in Neuron finds a link between autism and defects in synaptic pruning in humans, and also demonstrates that repairing broken pruning and autophagy mechanisms can improve autism symptoms in a mouse model.
“We were able to treat mice after the disease had appeared,” David Sulzer, a neurobiologist at Columbia University Medical Center who led the study, told The Washington Post.
Specifically, Sulzer’s team treated the mice with rapamycin, an immunosuppressant that inhibits the protein mTOR. The researchers showed that an overactivation of mTOR is responsible for the poor synaptic pruning in the mouse model. “They could treat with rapamycin and restore behavior and restore the pruning,” Kimberly Huber, a neuroscientist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center ...
