{"id":24294,"date":"2014-02-02T16:43:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T15:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=24294"},"modified":"2024-03-26T00:19:14","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T23:19:14","slug":"making-your-brain-social","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/making-your-brain-social\/","title":{"rendered":"Making your brain social"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In many people with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, different parts of the brain don\u2019t talk to each other very well. Scientists have now identified, for the first time, a way in which this decreased functional connectivity can come about. In a study published online today in&nbsp;<em>Nature Neuroscience<\/em>, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Monterotondo, Italy, and collaborators at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), in Rovereto, and La Sapienza University in Rome, demonstrate that it can be caused by cells called microglia failing to trim connections between neurons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe show that a deficit in microglia during development can have widespread and long-lasting effects on brain wiring and behaviour,\u201d says&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.embl.it\/research\/unit\/gross\/index.html?_ga=1.169314337.182401332.1338576329\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Cornelius Gross<\/a>, who led the study. \u201cIt leads to weak brain connectivity, decreased social behaviour, and increased repetitive behaviour, all hallmarks of autism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The findings indicate that, by trimming surplus connections in the developing brain, microglia allow the remaining links to grow stronger, like high-speed fibre-optic cables carrying strong signals between brain regions. But if these cells fail to do their job at that crucial stage of development, those brain regions are left with a weaker communication network, which in turn has lifelong effects on behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yang Zhan, a postdoctoral fellow in Gross\u2019 lab at EMBL, analysed the strength of connections between different areas of brain in mice that were genetically engineered to have fewer microglia during development. Working with&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/cncs.iit.it\/research-labs\/mri.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Alessandro Gozzi\u2019s&nbsp;lab<\/a>&nbsp;at IIT and Davide Ragozzino at La Sapienza University, the&nbsp;EMBL scientists combined&nbsp;this approach with&nbsp;high-resolution&nbsp;fMRI (functional Magnetic&nbsp;Resonance Imaging) scans of the mice\u2019s brains, taking full advantage of a&nbsp;novel technique&nbsp;developed at&nbsp;IIT, which enables scientists to obtain detailed, three-dimensional maps of the&nbsp;brain\u2019s functional connections. The team found that mice with fewer microglia had weaker connections between neurons, and less cross-talk between different brain regions. When Rosa Paolicelli, a PhD student in Gross\u2019 lab, studied the mice\u2019s behaviour, she discovered that mice with fewer microglia and decreased connectivity displayed behaviours commonly associated with autism spectrum disorders. These mice spent more time repeatedly grooming themselves, and avoided social interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis is an exciting time to be studying microglia,\u201d Gross concludes:&nbsp; \u201cthey\u2019re turning out to be major players in how our brain gets wired up.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In many people with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, different parts of the brain don\u2019t talk to each other very well. Scientists have now identified, for the first time, a way in which this decreased functional connectivity can come about. In a study published online today&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":24296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17591],"tags":[743,594,954,615,592,1748,514],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-24294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-science-technology","tag-autism","tag-microglia","tag-mouse","tag-neuron","tag-neuroscience","tag-press-release","tag-rome"],"acf":{"show_featured_image":false,"vf_locked":false,"featured":false,"article_intro":"<p>Failure to eliminate links between neurons produces autistic-like mice<\/p>\n","article_sources":[{"source_description":"<p>Zhan, Y., Paolicelli, R.C., Sforazzini, F., Weinhard, L., Bolasco, G., Pagani, F., Vyssotski, A.L., Bifone, A., Gozzi, A., Ragozzino, D., &#038; Gross, C.T. Deficient neuron-microglia signaling results in impaired functional brain connectivity and social behavior. Published online in <em>Nature Neuroscience<\/em> on 2 February 2014.<\/p>\n","source_link_url":"http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1038\/nn.3641"}],"related_links":[{"link_description":"Microglia trim connections between neurons - previous work by the Gross lab","link_url":"http:\/\/www.embl.de\/aboutus\/communication_outreach\/media_relations\/2011\/110721_Monterotondo\/index.html"},{"link_description":"Details of the fMRI technique developed by the Gozzi lab, published in Science","link_url":"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S1053811913009865"},{"link_description":"EMBL conference - Microglia: Guardians of the brain - Heidelberg, 26-29 March","link_url":"http:\/\/www.embl.de\/training\/events\/2014\/GLI14-01\/index.html"},{"link_description":"How microglia detect brain injuries - a study by the Peri group","link_url":"http:\/\/www.embl.de\/aboutus\/communication_outreach\/media_relations\/2012\/120524_Heidelberg\/index.html"}],"in_this_article":false,"color":"#007B53","youtube_url":"","mp4_url":"","video_caption":"","translations":false,"press_contact":"EMBL Generic"},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Making your brain social | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/science\/making-your-brain-social\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Making your brain social | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In many people with autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, different parts of the brain don\u2019t talk to each other very well. Scientists have now identified, for the first time, a way in which this decreased functional connectivity can come about. 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