Excitatory/Inhibitory balance and circuit homeostasis in Autism Spectrum Disorders

By Sacha B. Nelson, V. Valakh. Neuron, 2015

980 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and related neurological disorders are associated with mutations in many genes affecting the ratio between neuronal excitation and inhibition. However, understanding the impact of these mutations on network activity is complicated by the plasticity of these networks, making it difficult in many cases to separate initial deficits from homeostatic compensation. Here we explore the contrasting evidence for primary defects in inhibition or excitation in ASDs and attempt to integrate the findings in terms of the brain’s ability to maintain functional homeostasis.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Genetics, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0855a9d7a306f45b0c76cdf0dd12a7f223b48fbc

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Citations in the corpus

• Modelling learning and memory in Drosophila to understand Intellectual Disabilities. (2020, neutral): “Abbreviations: AL, antennal lobe; ARM, anaesthesia-resistant memory; ASDs, autism spectrum disorders; CNVs, copy number variants; DANs, dopaminergic neurons; DSM-5, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition; FXS, fragile X syndrome; ID, intellectual disability; IN, interneur”
• Human Gut Microbiota from Autism Spectrum Disorder Promote Behavioral Symptoms in Mice (2019, neutral): “Some forms of ASD are thought to result from an imbalance between excitation and inhibition (E-I) in synaptic transmission and cortical circuitry (Lee et al., 2017; Nelson and Valakh, 2015; Rubenstein and Merzenich, 2003), although a recent report suggests E-I imbalance is not causative in some mous”
• Resting state aperiodic and periodic EEG activity in preschool-aged autistic children: differences from neurotypical peers and links to language skills (2026, unknown): “In addition, prior studies suggested that individuals with ASD exhibit an E/I imbalance, characterized by decreased inhibition and increased excitation [34, 35].”
• Globally elevated excitation–inhibition ratio in children with autism spectrum disorder and below-average intelligence (2021, background): “Although Rubenstein and Merzenich initially related ASD to an elevated E–I ratio, later it became clear that some forms of ASD can be characterized by decreased E–I ratio [5, 6] and that alternations in the E–I ratio can be region-specific, reflecting homeostatic regulation of local E–I imbalances [”