Summary: A new study in Biological Psychiatry implicates the habenula in controlling social behavior. Increasing activity in the habenula leads to social probelms, researchers report.
Source: Elsevier.
A new study by researchers at Roche in Basel, Switzerland has identified a key brain region of the neural circuit that controls social behavior. Increasing the activity of this region, called the habenula, led to social problems in rodents, whereas decreasing activity of the region prevented social problems.
The study, which appears in Biological Psychiatry, suggests that social impairments characteristic of autism spectrum disorder may stem from alteration of activity in this circuit, and that tuning this circuit may help treat the social deficits in the disorder.
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