MIT Corrects Inherited Retardation, Autism In Mice

MIT Corrects Inherited Retardation, Autism In Mice

Researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have corrected key symptoms of mental retardation and autism in mice.

The work, which will be reported in the Dec. 20 issue of Neuron, also indicates that a certain class of drugs could have the same effect. These drugs are not yet approved by the FDA, but will soon be entering into human clinical trials.

Fragile X syndrome (FXS), affecting 100,000 Americans, is the most common inherited cause of mental retardation and autism. The MIT researchers corrected FXS in mice modeling the disease. "These findings have major therapeutic implications for fragile X syndrome and autism," said study lead author Mark F. Bear, director of the Picower Institute and Picower Professor of Neuroscience at MIT.

The findings support the theory that many of FXS's psychiatric and neurological symptoms-learning disabilities, autistic behavior, childhood epilepsy- stem from too much activation of one of the brain's chief network managers-the metabotropic glutamate receptor mGluR5.

"Fragile X is a disorder of excess-excess synaptic connectivity, protein synthesis, memory extinction, body growth, excitability-and remarkably, all these excesses can be reduced by reducing mGluR5," said Bear, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.