The within-subject application of diffusion tensor MRI and CLARITY reveals brain structural changes in Nrxn2 deletion mice.
Eleftheria Pervolaraki, Adam L Tyson, Francesca Pibiri and 7 others
PMID 30858964WHAT IT FOUND
In mice with a deletion in the Nrxn2α gene, brain imaging showed altered fibre alignment and density in social-related regions, while total brain size and cell density were unchanged.
Key findings
01Total brain volume was similar between wild-type and Nrxn2α knockout mice.
02In Nrxn2α knockout mice, fractional anisotropy was increased in the whole amygdala and decreased in the basolateral amygdala.
03In Nrxn2α knockout mice, axonal alignment and axonal density were increased in the anterior cingulate cortex.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study was done in mice, so it does not show what happens in human patients or how therapists should treat people. Only male mice were studied, so it does not address possible differences in female mice. The group sizes were small, with six mice in each genotype, and the authors noted this could be underpowered. Perfusion timing was not controlled, which the authors said may have influenced the results. CLARITY was applied only to the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, not the hippocampus. The diffusion MRI protocol used a limited number of diffusion directions, and no single diffusion MRI protocol is standard. This paper reports brain imaging results, not a behavioural experiment or treatment trial.
Declared interests
The supplied text names funders: Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, Medical Research Council, Alzheimer's Society, The Royal Society and FP7 Ideas: European Research Council. It does not report author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these mouse brain changes as evidence that a therapy works or that a confirmed human autism mechanism has been found. The study used mice and did not test treatment or human patients.