“…Specifically, DEG and GSEA analyses identified genes or gene sets that have been strongly associated with ASD, including high-risk ASD genes (Abrahams et al, 2013), genes involved in brain development (Brambilla et al, 2003; Courchesne et al, 2007; Walsh et al, 2008; Hazlett et al, 2017), and genes associated with neuronal synapses (Zoghbi, 2003; Garber, 2007; Südhof, 2008; Bourgeron, 2009; Spooren et al, 2012; Jiang and Ehlers, 2013; Won et al, 2013; Ebrahimi-Fakhari and Sahin, 2015; Monteiro and Feng, 2017) and astrocytes (Clarke and Barres, 2013; Petrelli et al, 2016). In addition, our study demonstrated that Pv interneurons, which have been strongly implicated in ASD (Lawrence et al, 2010; Yizhar et al, 2011; Saunders et al, 2013; Barnes et al, 2015; Filice et al, 2016; Selimbeyoglu et al, 2017; Cao et al, 2018; Hashemi et al, 2018; Lee et al, 2018), exhibit an altered density in Tbr1 +/K228E mice. Moreover, the increased inhibitory synaptic transmission in layer 6 pyramidal neurons supports the role of an E/I imbalance in ASD (Rubenstein and Merzenich, 2003; Pizzarelli and Cherubini, 2011; Nelson and Valakh, 2015; Lee et al, 2017).…”