What is it about?
All of the marvelous things our brains do - sensing the world, moving our bodies, imagination, memory, and more - depend on having a good balance between two competing types of brain cells. One type, the inhibitory neurons, tends to put the brakes on brain activity, while the other type, the excitatory neurons, tends to push on the accelerator. Our results here suggest that when the gene responsible for Rett syndrome is disrupted, the competition between inhibitory and excitatory neurons becomes imbalanced with too much inhibition in motor cortex. This imbalance seems to cause reduced complexity of brain activity and body movements.
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Why is it important?
It has been well known that the disrupting the MeCP2 gene causes Rett syndrome, but how that genetic problem results in problematic brain function and behavior has been a challenge. Our study meets this challenge and may help to explain what goes wrong in the brain circuits of people with Rett syndrome.
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This page is a summary of: Collapse of complexity of brain and body activity due to excessive inhibition and MeCP2 disruption, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2106378118.
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