Now, a preclinical study, from the lab of Olivier Berton, PhD, an assistant professor in the department of Psychiatry, in collaboration with Sheryl Beck, PhD, a professor in the department of Anesthesiology at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, found that bullying and other social stresses triggered symptoms of depression in mice by activating GABA neurons, in a never - before - seen direct relationship
between social stimuli and this neural circuitry.
In mouse models of ASD, symptoms include an imbalance
between «on» and «off» neural signaling in the brain's neocortex, altered responses to sensory
stimuli and impaired
social behavior.