New Study Published; Autism, genetics, & neurology

by Christopher Connallon
Soft Blog Contributor
A new study published last wednesday in neuroscience journal Neuron reveals a link between an enzyme-regulating protein and autism-like behavior in mice. The study, sparsely reported albeit interesting, raises doubts on the dominance of genetics in autism and obsessive-compulsive type disorders, at least in mice for now. The protein is called FKBP12, and it regulates the enzyme mTOR, found both in humans and mice. The study was led by researchers from New York University's Center for Neural Science and Baylor College of Medicine
From researcher Eric Klann:
"Perservative and repetitive behaviors associated with these neurological disorders are widely believed to be developmentally established -- determined in utero by genetic, hormonal, and environmental factors,” Eric Klann, a neuroscientist at NYU and the lead researcher of the study, was quoted as saying. “Because our study indicates that postnatal release of mTOR activity can result in certain perseverative behaviors, it challenges the idea that some aspects of these conditions are developmentally predetermined."
From the Neuron publication summary:
"Behaviorally, FKBP12 conditional knockout (cKO) mice displayed enhanced contextual fear memory and autistic/obsessive-compulsive-like perseveration in several assays including the water maze, Y-maze reversal task, and the novel object recognition test. Our results indicate that FKBP12 plays a critical role in the regulation of mTOR-Raptor interactions, LTP, memory, and perseverative behaviors."
For more, read the articles here and here