Daily Archive for September 30th, 2008

Neurons in the central nervous system communicate with each other chemically through neural synapses. Neurons receive excitatory input from glutamatergic neurons and inhibitory input from GABA-releasing (GABAergic) interneurons. Some hypotheses about Autism are predicated on the possibility that there is an imbalance between the excitatory and inhibitory neural activity, perhaps especially in the so-called mirror neurons. Reporting in Nature, Yingxi Lin and fellow scientistics working in Michael Greenberg’s group at Harvard University have discovered a gene—Npas4—that may regulate the balance between excessive and insufficient excitation of synapses.
Continue reading ‘Possible balancer of neural excitation-inhibition?’