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Neuroscience

Fragile dopamine

Nature volume 455, pages 607–608 (2008)Cite this article

Dopamine dysfunction, which is implicated in Parkinson's disease and drug addiction, seems an unlikely culprit in fragile X syndrome. A surprising set of findings means a rethink is required.

Fragile X syndrome is the commonest inherited form of mental retardation, with the patients often also having autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder1. It is usually caused by the absence of the protein FMRP, which is encoded by FMR1, a gene on the X chromosome. Although FMRP function is not well understood, most studies concur that it is a selective RNA-binding protein that modulates the translation of its target messenger RNAs2. But this deceptively simple description of FMRP function omits any role for the neurotransmitter dopamine, despite the fact that some of the clinical and behavioural features of fragile X syndrome are reminiscent of dysfunction in dopamine-secreting neurons. Writing in Neuron, Wang et al.3 elucidate the role of FMRP in modulating dopamine signalling.

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Figure 1: FMRP-mediated regulation of dopamine signalling.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. David Weinshenker and Stephen T. Warren are in the Department of Human Genetics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. dweinsh@emory.edu swarren@emory.edu,

    David Weinshenker & Stephen T. Warren

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  1. David Weinshenker
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  2. Stephen T. Warren
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Weinshenker, D., Warren, S. Fragile dopamine. Nature 455, 607–608 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/455607a

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