News Releases & Research Results A novel mechanism involved in the pathophysiology of autism spectrum disorder - Promote the establishment of therapeutic strategies and the development of new drugs for autism spectrum disorder -

The results of research conducted by Graduate Student Hiroaki Sacai (at the time of the research), Lecturer Naofumi Uesaka (at the time of the research), and Professor Masanobu Kano of the Department of Neurophysiology, Division of Functional Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, the University of Tokyo.

• The causal relationship between synaptic dysfunction and impaired social interaction was revealed and the brain region responsible for impaired social interaction was successfully identified in a mouse experiment with the CNTNAP2 and AHI1 genes, i.e., candidate genes for autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
• Specifically, the synaptic dysfunction of pyramidal cells in the prefrontal cortex may cause ASD symptoms.
• The results of this research project should promote the establishment of new therapeutic strategies and the development of new drugs for ASD.

This program was implemented with the support of the Strategic Research Program for Brain Sciences by AMED.

The results were published online in Nature Communications on October 12.

Sacai H., et al. Autism spectrum disorder-like behavior caused by reduced excitatory synaptic transmission in pyramidal neurons of mouse prefrontal cortex Nature Communications
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18861-3