According to the new study which says people suffering from autism may have an excess of brain neurons or connection, the root cause was found in the guise of a malfunctioning gene and was called a ubiquity ligase required for attaching a molecule tag to proteins which regulate the proteins in the brain. A ubiquity ligase was like an organizer telling the cell how to react with other similar tagged proteins and whether it should be discarded or tined down. This resulted in confusion and chaos. Questions were then asked if these should be removed at all and rerouted to another entire to another part of the cell.
At Washington University, scientists removed a ubiquitin gene RNF8 of the area in mice belonging to one group while another group remained the same. It was found that the Mice with the gene removed showed an excess of 50 more neurons or synapses than the other mice in the study group. The electrical mechanism or switch was measured in the neuron and was found to be twice as active as those with normal functioning cells.
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As ASD causes problems in motor skills such as language, movement, and attention in the cerebellum, the research even had trained mice to link the action of blowing smoke to the eye with a blinking light. Just one week after this, the normal group of mice closed their eyes 75% of the time. The mice with their neuron removed closed their eyes only 13th of the time.
Although scientists felt that such behavior of mice who never shut their eyes in spite of being trained couldn’t exactly be associated with human autism, they felt it was a huge stepping stone to understanding the disease and what could be possibly causing it. There was a definite link between synapses and the way autistic patients behaved and this could serve as the foundation for medical treatment that actually treated autism rather than suppresses it.
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