Can we close the gap between known autism risk genes and therapeutic targets?

We know hundreds of genes are linked to autism, but there's a huge gap between knowing a gene matters and understanding what it does inside the brain's circuits, which has made therapeutics hard to develop. 

A new paper led by Pingping Zhao in Peyman Golshani's lab at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA helps close that gap. Using miniature brain-imaging microscopes and optogenetics, the team found two cell types in a reward-related brain region that pull in opposite directions during social interaction, one promotes sociability, one suppresses it. In a mouse model of autism, this balance breaks down, and dialing down the suppressive cell type improved social behavior. A real step from risk gene to therapeutic target. 

Read the entire paper: Cell-type-specific disruption of nucleus accumbens social representations in a mouse model of autism