alotfrommyself

[alotfrommyself]

Researchers Identify Role Gender-Biased Protein May Play in Autism

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire are one step closer to helping answer the question of why autism is four times more common in boys than in girls after identifying and characterizing the connection of certain proteins in the brain to autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

“Our study is the first to look at the sex-biased regulation of proteins in the brain and how they may play a role in affecting abnormal changes in the body that results in autism,” said Xuanmao (Mao) Chen, assistant professor of neurobiology. “Our findings point to a new direction for autism research and suggest promising possibilities for creating novel treatment strategies.”

In the study, recently published in the journal Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, the researchers looked at an enzyme called AC3 which is genetically connected to major depressive disorder (MDD), obesity, and autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, not much is known about how AC3 functions in the brain. What is known is that many neurodevelopmental disorders or psychiatric diseases, such as depression and autism, exhibit profound differences between males and females, known as sexual dimorphism. For example, females have a higher risk of depression, whereas autism affects more males, with a boy to girl ratio of four to one. The problem is that it is unclear what causes the differences.

The researchers took a closer look at the phosphorylation in the brain, a process when groups of chemicals called phosphates attach to proteins to regulate them, to see which were influenced based on sex. They identified 204 proteins that were more highly regulated in females than in males. Of those, a large percentage (31%) were associated with autism.

“Our results suggest that proteins in the female brain, particularly autism-related proteins, are more tightly regulated than those in the male brain possibly helping to prevent the development of autism in females,” said Chen.

The researchers point to evolution for possibly playing a part in how these proteins behave based on the key roles or functions of each sex. The female role has traditionally been multi-tasking several activities like childrearing, caring for the family, the home, and preparing meals whereas male tasks were more specifically focused on functions like hunting and gathering. You can see this highly focused trait in autistic males who are very smart but tend to be fixated on one thing and not interested in, or cannot handle, other social interactions.

Chen says that this research is still in the early phase with mouse models and more studies are needed, but he is hopeful that it may open up a new research direction and one day could possibly lead to a new pharmacological treatment.

[alotfrommyself]

Spiritual fact is the universal fact

S.S.K

(via

creativespacetime

)

[alotfrommyself]

[alotfrommyself]

I’m standing here Watcing the clouds float by Wondering why the pain never deserted me The sadness, sorrow, bewilderness that never left (…the moments of joy I never kept) I’m flying away Holding hands with myself Sharing life with myself Reaping the loneliness I’ve sown In these fields I’ve always grown Digging the blackness from my mind I will die all alone

Saturnus - All alone

(via

agxomalakas

)

[alotfrommyself]

Tbh lungs were boring and the coffee didn’t really wake me up

[alotfrommyself]

If matter is inert, then organized processes can be explained only by referring to a structuring intelligence. But if it is interactive (think of any chemical reaction) under changing, interdependent constraints, such outside direction is not needed.

Susan Oyama, Evolution’s Eye: A Systems’ View of the Biology-Culture Divide (via exhaled-spirals)

[alotfrommyself]

Plate from ‘Anatomie comparée du système nerveux considéré dans ses rapports avec l'intelligence’ by François Leuret and Pierre-Louis Gratiolet

[alotfrommyself]

By Antonio Scarpa (9 May 1752 – 31 October 1832)

[alotfrommyself]

“Here are stars in uncountable numbers, each (perhaps) warming Earths unseen, other Earths teeming with other life. Here are galaxies where stars by the hundreds of billions are bom in gassy nebulas and die in violence. Here are galaxies arrayed in knots and streamers across light-years, across billions of light-years, like motes of dust dancing in window light, worlds and worlds without end, reaching at last back to that singular moment when all that now exists came to be in a blinding flash of pure creation.”

—

Chet Raymo, The Soul of the Night

[alotfrommyself]

“The seventh question of self-formation: Do you want to become more respected, or more feared, or more despised?”

—F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power, §909 (edited excerpt).

[alotfrommyself]

“Once the strata and class struggle that aims at equality of rights is more or less over, the war against the solitary personality, which can maintain and develop itself in a democratic society, will begin.”

—F. Nietzsche, The Will to Power, §887 (edited excerpt).

[alotfrommyself]

Istanbul masalı

[alotfrommyself]

[alotfrommyself]

“Some part of life — perhaps the most important part — must be left to the spontaneous action of individual impulse, for where all is system there will be mental and spiritual death.”

— Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society

[alotfrommyself]

[alotfrommyself]

life of a biology major!!