Extra Gene Makes Mice Manic

Post Reply New Topic

A common mood-stabilizing drug, valproate, is found to control maniclike behavior induced in mice with an extra copy of a gene called SHANK3

By Amanda Mascarelli and Nature magazine

Duplication of a single gene — and too much of the corresponding protein in brain cells — causes mice to have seizures and display manic-like behavior, a study has found. But a widely used drug reversed the symptoms, suggesting that it could also help some people with hyperactivity who do not respond to common treatments.

Smooth functioning at the synapses, the junctions between brain cells, is crucial to functions that control everything from social etiquette to everyday decision-making. It is increasingly thought that some neuropsychiatric disorders are caused by function of the synapses going awry, and indeed researchers have found that neuropsychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia and autism can sometimes be traced to missing or mutated copies of SHANK3, a gene that encodes one of the 'architectural' proteins that help to ensure that messages are relayed properly between cells. Some people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Asperger's syndrome or schizophrenia have an extra copy of a wider region of DNA that contains SHANK3.

To explore the role of SHANK3, Huda Zoghbi, a neurogeneticist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and her colleagues created mice with duplicate copies of the gene. “The mouse was remarkably hyperactive, running around like mad,” says Zoghbi. But the animals did not respond to stimulant medications typically used to treat ADHD. Instead, their hyperactivity grew much worse. “That’s when we knew this was not typical ADHD,” says Zoghbi. The study is published today in Nature.

The rest of this story is here >> http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... mice-manic