Shaping the Brain's Destiny for Treating Neuropsychiatric Disorders

Throughout childhood and adolescence, the brain undergoes continuous transformations, with neuropsychiatric disorders like schizophrenia often emerging during young adulthood. At the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, University of Rochester, researchers are edging closer to identifying a potential target for treating neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism that could impact brain circuitry into adulthood, focusing on addressing dysfunction within the dopamine system critical for cognitive processing and decision-making (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Adolescent neurostimulation of dopamine circuit reverses genetic deficits in frontal cortex function

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“Brain development is a lengthy process, and many neuronal systems have critical windows - key times when brain areas are malleable and undergoing final maturation steps,” said Rianne Stowell, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the Wang Lab at the University of Rochester Medical Center and co-first author on research out in the journal eLife. “By identifying these windows, we can target interventions to these time periods and possibly change the course of a disease by rescuing the structural and behavioral deficits caused by these disorders.”

Unlocking the Neurodevelopmental Puzzle

Researchers targeted underperforming neurons in the dopamine system that connect to the frontal cortex in mice.

This circuitry is essential in higher cognitive processing and decision-making. They found that stimulating the cells that provide dopamine to the frontal cortex strengthened this circuit and rescued structural deficiencies in the brain that cause long-term symptoms.

Previous research from the Wang Lab identified that this specific arm of the dopamine system was flexible in the adolescent brain but not in adults. This most recent research used this window for plasticity in the system as an opportunity for therapeutic intervention.

“These findings suggest that increasing the activity of the adolescent dopaminergic circuitry can rescue existing deficits in the circuit and that this effect can be long-lasting as these changes persist into adulthood,” Stowell said. “If we can target the right windows in development and understand the signals at play, we can develop treatments that change the course of these brain disorders.”

Reference:

1. Adolescent neurostimulation of dopamine circuit reverses genetic deficits in frontal cortex function - (https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/87414)

Source-Eurekalert