Nature: Revealing the brain's sensory gating system!

28 July 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Many people with autism have symptoms of sensory allergies, attention deficit and sleep disorders.one of the brain regions associated with these symptoms is the thalamus mesh nucleus (TRN), which is thought to be the gatekeeper of sensory information that flows into the cortex.a team of researchers from the MIT, MIT and Harvard University's Broad Institute has now mapped the region in unprecedented detail, revealing two different networks of neurons with different functions. The findings could provide researchers with more specific goals for drug design, which reduces some of the sensory, sleep and attention symptoms of autism, said Guoping Feng, one of the group's leaders in the. "The idea is that you can target a group of neurons very specifically without affecting the entire brain and other cognitive functions," said Professor Feng, a professor of neuroscience at mite, James W. and Patricia Poitras, and a member of MIT's McGovern Brain Institute.the study, published recently in the journal Nature, is entitled Distinct subnetworks of the thalamic retified nucleus.picture source: Different subgroups enter our brains when sensory input from the eyes, ears, or other sensory organs enters our brain, it enters the thalamus and then passes on to the cerebral cortex for higher levels of processing.these hypothalamus-cortical circuits can lead to attention deficit, allergies to noise and other irritations, and sleep problems. One of the main wayscontrolthe flow of information between the thalamus and the cortex is TRN, which is responsible for blocking distracting sensory input.2016, Professor Feng and Michael Halassa, an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that the loss of a gene called Ptchd1 significantly affects the function of TRN.for boys, losing the gene carried on the X chromosome can lead to attention deficit, ADHD, aggression, intellectual disability, and autism spectrum disorder.in the study, the researchers found that when the Ptchd1 gene was knocked out in mice, mice showed many of the same behavioral defects as human patients.when the TRN gene was struck off, the mice showed only ADHD, attention deficit, and sleep disruption, suggesting that TRN was the cause of these symptoms.in the new study, researchers try to learn more about specific types of neurons found in TRN in the hope of finding new ways to treat ADHD and attention deficit.currently, the most common treatment for these symptoms is stimulant drugs such as Ritalin, which have a wide range of effects on the brain.researchers' goal is to find specific ways to regulate the function of the hypothalamus-cortical output and link it to neurodevelopmental disorders.they decided to try to use single-cell technology to dissect the type of cells and the genes they express. to determine whether specific genes can be targeted for drugs? To explore this possibility, the researchers sequenced messenger RNA molecules found in TRN neurons to reveal genes expressed in these cells. allowed them to identify hundreds of genes that could differentiate cells into two subgroups based on how strongly they express them. they found that one cell group is at the core of TRN, while the other cells form a very thin layer around the core. researchers found that the two types of cells also form associations with different parts of the thalamus. based on these connections, the researchers hypothesized that core cells were involved in transmitting sensory information to the cerebral cortex, while outer cells appeared to help coordinate information coming through different senses, such as vision and hearing. drug-taking target researchers now plan to study the different roles these two neurons may play in a variety of neurological symptoms, including attention deficit, allergies and sleep disruption. using gene and photogenetic technology, they want edited the effect of activating or suppressing genes expressed in different TRN cell types or cells. picture source: This could help researchers in the future to actually develop specific drug targets that regulate different functions. the thalamus-cortical circuit controls many different things, such as sensory perception, sleep, attention, and cognitive abilities, which may be more targeted. researchers say this method could also be used to treat attention-related or allergies, even if they are not caused by TRN dysfunction. TRN is a target, and if you enhance its function, you may be able to correct problems caused by damage to the thalamus-cortical circuit. researchers say they are a long way from developing any treatment, but the potential is not only to use single-cell technology to understand how the brain organizes itself, but also to know how to isolate brain function, allowing scientists to identify more specific targets for regulating specific functions. " () References: Mapping the brain's sensory gate likeeper, Y., Lopez-Huerta, V.G., Adiconis, X. et al. Distinct subnetworks of the thalamic retique nucleius. Nature (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2504-5.