Layer-Specific Changes in the Prefrontal Glia/Neuron Ratio Characterizes Patches of Gene Expression Disorganization in Children with Autism.
Livia Nascimento RabeloJosé Pablo Gonçalves QueirozCarla Cristina Miranda CastroSayonara Pereira SilvaLaura Damasceno CamposLarissa Camila SilvaEzequiel Batista NascimentoVeronica Martínez-CerdeñoFelipe Porto FiuzaPublished in: Journal of autism and developmental disorders (2022)
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is manifested by abnormal cell numbers and patches of gene expression disruption in higher-order brain regions. Here, we investigated whether layer-specific changes in glia/neuron ratios (GNR) characterize patches in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DL-PFC) of children with ASD. We analyzed high-resolution digital images of postmortem human brains from 11 ASD and 11 non-ASD children obtained from the Autism Study of the Allen Human Brain Atlas. We found the GNR is overall reduced in the ASD DL-PFC. Moreover, layers II-III belonging to patches presented a lower GNR in comparison with layers V-VI. We here provide a new insight into how brain cells are arranged within patches that contributes to elucidate how neurodevelopmental programs are altered in ASD.
Keyphrases
- autism spectrum disorder
- gene expression
- intellectual disability
- prefrontal cortex
- attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
- young adults
- high resolution
- dna methylation
- single cell
- working memory
- resting state
- endothelial cells
- induced apoptosis
- white matter
- functional connectivity
- transcranial magnetic stimulation
- stem cells
- machine learning
- cell proliferation
- multiple sclerosis
- convolutional neural network
- oxidative stress
- cell therapy
- signaling pathway
- mass spectrometry
- endoplasmic reticulum stress
- congenital heart disease