“Brain
development is a lengthy process, and many neuronal systems have
critical windowskey times when brain areas are malleable and
undergoing final maturation steps,” said Rianne Stowell, Ph.D., a
postdoctoral fellow in the Wang Lab at the University of Rochester
Medical Center and co-first author on research out in the journal
“By identifying these windows, we can target
interventions to these time periods and possibly change the course of
a disease by rescuing the structural and behavioral deficits caused
by these disorders.”
Researchers
targeted underperforming neurons in the dopamine system that connect
to the frontal cortex in mice.
This
circuitry is essential in higher cognitive processing and
decision-making. They found that stimulating the cells that provide
dopamine to the frontal cortex strengthened this circuit and rescued
structural deficiencies in the brain that cause long-term symptoms.
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Previous
research from the Wang Lab identified that this specific arm of the
dopamine system was flexible in the adolescent brain but not in
adults. This most recent research used this window for plasticity in
the system as an opportunity for therapeutic intervention.
“These
findings suggest that increasing the activity of the adolescent
dopaminergic circuitry can rescue existing deficits in the circuit
and that this effect can be long-lasting as these changes persist
into adulthood,” Stowell said. “If we can target the right
windows in development and understand the signals at play, we can
develop treatments that change the course of these brain disorders.”
Reference :
- Adolescent neurostimulation of dopamine circuit reverses genetic deficits in frontal cortex function
– (https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/87414)
Source: Eurekalert
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