Behavioral problems in psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia have been hypothesized to arise from an elevated cellular excitation to inhibition balance in neural microcircuitry. Yizhar et al. now test this E-I by using optogenetic tools to elevate the cellular E-I balance in the medial prefrontal cortex of freely moving mice. This resulted in social and cognition impairments, and could be ameliorated by elevating the inhibitory cell activity, lending support to the hypothesis.
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Optogenetic tools for social disorders. Nat Methods 8, 709 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1691
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1691