Unifying Views of Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Consideration of Autoregulatory Feedback Loops.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the mechanisms underlying autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) is a challenging goal. Here we review recent progress on several fronts, including genetics, proteomics, biochemistry, and electrophysiology, that raise motivation for forming a viable pathophysiological hypothesis. In place of a traditionally unidirectional progression, we put forward a framework that extends homeostatic hypotheses by explicitly emphasizing autoregulatory feedback loops and known synaptic biology. The regulated biological feature can be neuronal electrical activity, the collective strength of synapses onto a dendritic branch, the local concentration of a signaling molecule, or the relative strengths of synaptic excitation and inhibition. The sensor of the biological variable (which we have termed the

SUBMITTER: Mullins C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5757244 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature