Autism and other brain disorders may be the result of a missing protein important for building communication networks in the brain, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that an enzyme called Cdk5 that instructs a synapse-building protein called CASK may be going awry, causing a breakdown in the formation of synapses.

Synapses allow information from one neuron to pass to another and are essential for the ability to learn and remember.

“If there is a reduction in the number of synapses, that is going to profoundly affect the function of the nervous system,” said Li-Huei Tsai, an MIT professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher, whose study appears in the journal Neuron.

Cdk5 is a kinase, an enzyme that changes proteins. Its primary task is to help new neurons form and migrate to their correct positions during brain development. But Tsai’s study suggests it may also play a role in the formation of synapses.

The research offers a possible explanation for the underlying molecular causes of autism, she said in a telephone interview…

Source: Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSN0559499920071205