salve
come altri, credo, ho letto su Internazionale di questa settimana un articolo uscito in origine sul New Yorker
parla di Deisseroth (di Stanford), di opsine, di optogenetica, e fa riferimenti a depressione, schizofrenia, e anche autismo (senza che questo tema sia approfondito, ma non si tratta di una rivista scientifica)
qualcuno conosce il tema e le sue possibili, distanti, ricadute sulla questione del trattamento dell'autismo?
26 agosto
L’articolo di New Yorker si puo’ leggere integralmente al link
Da qui copio quanto segue
At
present, optogenetics can be used only on animals like mice and rats, whose
brain functions associated with elemental emotions, like fear and anxiety and
reward, are similar to those in humans. But Deisseroth’s work with patients
like Sally, whose VNS implant allows him to control emotions and behavior,
hints at what may one day be possible.
Sally è una paziente con depressione dell'umore nella quale il ricercatore ha praticato una cura sperimentale basata su questi principi.
Optogenetics
was a major spur to the Obama Administration’s announcement, in 2013, of the BRAIN Initiative, a
three-hundred-million-dollar program for developing technologies to treat such
neurological ailments as Alzheimer’s disease, autism, schizophrenia, and
traumatic brain injury. Deisseroth was part of the working group that created
the Initiative and has vetted grant applications for it.
Dunque una linea di ricerca e non una terapia, neanche in fase di sperimentazione per l'autismo. Se son rose, fioriranno
Su pub med ho trovato quanto segue
Optogenetic investigation of neural circuits
underlying brain disease in animal models.
Abstract
Optogenetic tools have provided a new way to establish
causal relationships between brain activity and behaviour in health and disease.
Although no animal model captures human disease precisely, behaviours that
recapitulate disease symptoms may be elicited and modulated by optogenetic
methods, including behaviours that are relevant to anxiety, fear, depression,
addiction, autism and parkinsonism. The rapid
proliferation of optogenetic reagents together with the swift advancement of
strategies for implementation has created new opportunities for causal and
precise dissection of the circuits underlying brain diseases in animal models.