Prefrontal circuits guiding social preference: Implications in autism spectrum disorder

Enhancing social behavior in an autism spectrum disorder mouse model: investigating the underlying mechanisms of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum intervention

“… 76 Apart from the hippocampus, the prefrontal cortex is considered a key social hub involved in anxiety regulation and social preference. 77 , 78 In the present study, we showed that VPA mice exhibited reduced dendritic complexity, dendritic length, and branch point number in both the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex ( Figure 2 ). Moreover, there was a notable decrease in the number of synaptic spines in the VPA mice ( Figure 3 ).…”

Changes in neuroinflammatory markers and microglial density in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex of the C58/J mouse model of autism

“…Classical imaging and functional studies have focused on the alterations in brain regions governing the core symptoms of ASD related to social processes, such as face recognition (Hadjikhani et al, 2004) and normative social environments (P. S. Lee et al, 2009). In this regard, a number of brain regions governing cognitive processes have been linked to autism, such as the PFC, which is widely responsible for modulating social preference and response to social stimuli (Fortier et al, 2022;Sato et al, 2023), besides partly modulating the emergence of repetitive/inflexible behaviours (Kelly et al, 2020), making it one of the main candidate areas to evaluate in the context of ASD.…”

Pre- and postsynaptic N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors are required for sequential printing of fear memory engrams

“…Our findings of altered circuit dynamics in double Grin1 gene knockout in the BLA and mPFC would provide crucial insight into cognitive dysfunction, psychosis, and other psychiatric disorders such as autism spectrum disorder, 90 posttraumatic disorder (PTSD), 91 , 92 , 93 , 94 and schizophrenia. 95 The genetic toolbox applied in the current study is adequately applicable for understanding the operating principles of brain circuits for the various neurobiological processes and pathological conditions and has the potential to facilitate the design of circuit-targeted therapeutics to treat brain diseases.…”