Paving the way to understand and uncover the genesis of autism has presented the scientists with challenges to study the development of the human brain. They reveal that even the slightest mistake during the initial stages of brain development can have a massive impact on someone’s life. It will be critical to find these mistakes to someday avert developmental disorders such as autism.
The scientists have figured a way out to somewhat fight these challenges by acquiring skin cells from patients, convert them into brain cells, and grow them up into miniature brain “organoids” in a dish. This brain-in-a-dish method has been an extraordinary invention a few years ago. Therefore, researchers now report in the journal Cell that they have secured new insights into autism by examining brain organoids grown from the skin cells of patients with the disorder.
Scientists managed to spot key developmental differences that could one day be used to prevent this type of autism by growing a brain organoid from the cells of patients with enlarged brains which is a unique trait associated with more severe autism symptoms.
Senior study author Flora Vaccarino claims that they can recapitulate development in a dish where all of the genes are activated during development, the cells are generated and there is no other method. They feel they absolutely have to look at how the brain changes early in life to properly study how it develops. That is possible in the unfortunate situation of an autistic child dying and the parents donating the child’s brain to examine for scientific purposes but, this can be quiet rare. However, these brains are not as useful as the brain organoids; they show only a static snapshot of a brain that has already gone through many of the major stages of brain development.
By making autism patients who have enlarged brains the focal point; the team of researchers wants to proceed with just one subgroup of autism. For comparison, Vaccarino and her colleagues obtained skin cell samples from four such patients, and their parents. Then they used them to cultivate brain organoids that mimicked the development of a brain in an embryo 10 to 16 weeks old. They particularly looked at the cerebral cortex — the seat of higher brain functions like complex thought.
They discovered that the brain organoids of the autistic patients showed a noticeable imbalance between two types of neurons and amplified levels of expression of a gene active in brain development. And, to restore the balance they had to suppress this one gene. The outcome suggested the possibility of regulating genes that cause autism to restore normal brain function before a child is born.
Sanam Reza
