A fat hope for autism! - Interview with Zhigang Xie on role of fatty acid metabolism in neuronal stem cells.

Autism is a distressful condition with impaired social interaction and communication. At its basis, it is a neurodevelopment disorder, with certain areas of the brain not developing properly. The burden of brain development falls on neural stem cells, which divide to generate functional neurons as well as maintaining their own numbers. Zhigang Xi and his colleagues show that fatty acid beta-oxidation seems to play a major role in maintaining the stem cells involved in autistic behavior. How is this achieved -- to know the answer, we call Zhigang Xi.


Please read the original article here:
Inborn Errors of Long-Chain Fatty Acid β-Oxidation Link Neural Stem Cell Self-Renewal to Autism
Xie et al., Cell Reports (2016). Volume 14, Issue 5, p991–999.