Advancing knowledge of human development, developmental disabilities, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Title: Interconversion of early VSX2WT and VSX2R200Q hiPSC-OV phenotypes by pharmacological manipulation of WNT signaling. Legend: Pharmacological manipulation of the WNT signaling pathway during in vitro retinogenesis in hiPSCs affects the cell fate decision between retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and retinal neurons (neuroretina). In wild type human iPS cells (hiPSCs), augmenting WNT signaling increases RPE …
Title: Suppression of microglia activation after hypoxia-ischemia results in age-dependent improvements in neurologic injury. Legend: Figure 1. Minocycline treatment suppresses the microglial response to hypoxia-ischemia (HI) in neonatal and juvenile mice. The number of CD11b+/CD45+ cells in ipsilateral hippocampus (A) cortex (B), and striatum (C) relative to the corresponding contralateral brain region (IL/CL) were determined …
Title: Brief Report: Fast mapping predicts differences in concurrent and later language abilities in children with ASD. Legend: Receptive and expressive language at age 3½ and age 5½ by fast mapping profile group. PLS-4 = Preschool Language Scale, 4th Edition. Error bars represent one standard error. Left panel: At age 3½, poor learners had significantly lower receptive …
Title: Enhanced Prefrontal-Amygdala Connectivity Following Childhood Adversity as a Protective Mechanism Against Internalizing in Adolescence Legend: Childhood adversity predicts greater amygdala–medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) functional connectivity (FC) in adolescence, but it is moderated by internalizing (Int) symptoms. Functional connectivity estimates were derived from the negative vs. neutral image contrast, using a seed-based approach. The seed …
Title: KIF1A dynamically colocalizes with syt-IV and invades dendritic spines along microtubules. Legend: (a) eGFP-KIF1A colocalizes with mCherry-syt-IV in the dendritic shaft and moves together over time as detected in time-lapse images and in kymographs (scale bar, 5 mm). (b) Kymographs demonstrating that KIF1A (green arrows) does not colocalize with mitochondria (red arrow) in the …
Title: Metabolomic analysis of CSF indicates brain metabolic impairment precedes hematological indices of anemia in the iron-deficient infant monkey. Legend: NMR spectra with typical metabolite peaks in the cerebrospinal fluid of one iron-sufficient (IS) and one iron-deficient (ID) rhesus monkey. Differences in citrate (cit), glutamine (gin), and pyruvate (pyr) indicate that brain energetics are affected …
Title: Altered flip/flop alternative splicing causes a reduction of the decay time constant of the AMPA receptor. Legend: (a) RNA-Seq analysis reveals a significant change of the relative flip/flop ratio of Gria2 in Mecp2 KO cortex. (b) qRT-PCR confirms the significant reduction of flip/flop ratio of Gria2 in Mecp2 KO. (c) qRT-PCR results show that …
Title: ERα Signaling Is Required for TrkB-Mediated Hippocampal Neuroprotection in Female Neonatal Mice after Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy Legend: Increases in p-TrkB immuno and protein expressions are sexually differentiated and ERα dependent post-HI. A. Changes in MAP2 and p-TrkBY515 immunoexpression in the CL and IL hippocampi of ERα+/+ and ERα-/- P9 male and female mice were …
Title: Creation of a human reporter stem cell line for detecting fragile X mental retardation (FMR1) gene reactivation in human neural cells. Legend: Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability and a major genetic cause of autism. FXS is caused by mutational trinucleotide expansion in the FMR1 gene leading …
Title: Age-dependent differences in brain tissue microstructure assessed with neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging Legend: Healthy brain aging involves substantial changes to the structures that “wire up” the brain, including myelinated axons and dendritic connections. However, these changes and their impact on memory and other thinking skills are often difficult to measure in living …
