Nature Neuroscience
- 9, 1221 - 1225 (2006)
Published online: 26 September 2006; | doi:10.1038/nn1765
Fragile X syndrome and autism at the intersection of genetic and neural networksMatthew K Belmonte1 & Thomas Bourgeron21
Matthew K. Belmonte is in the Department of Human Development, Cornell University, Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Ithaca, New York 14853–4401, USA. belmonte@mit.edu.
2
Thomas Bourgeron is in the Laboratoire de Génétique Humaine et Fonctions Cognitives, Institut Pasteur, 25 Rue du Docteur Roux, 75015 Paris Cedex 15, France, and at the Université Paris 7, 2 Place Jussieu, 75251 Paris Cedex 05, France. Autism, an entirely behavioral diagnosis with no largely understood etiologies and no population-wide biomarkers, contrasts with fragile X syndrome (FXS), a single-gene disorder with definite alterations of gene expression and neuronal morphology. Nevertheless, the behavioral overlap between autism and FXS suggests some overlapping mechanisms. Understanding how the single-gene alteration in FXS plays out within complex genetic and neural network processes may suggest targets for autism research and illustrate strategies for relating autism to more singular genetic syndromes.
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