Ellen Kanter

TL;DR: This work reports increased dendritic spine density with reduced developmental spine pruning in layer V pyramidal neurons in postmortem ASD temporal lobe and suggests that mTOR-regulated autophagy is required for developmental spinePruning, and activation of neuronal Autophagy corrects synaptic pathology and social behavior deficits in ASD models with hyperactivated mTOR.

TL;DR: It is shown that a defined set of peptides that are derived from α-synuclein, a protein aggregated in Parkinson’s disease, act as antigenic epitopes displayed by these alleles and drive helper and cytotoxic T cell responses in patients with Parkinson's disease.

TL;DR: Using intracellular patch electrochemistry to directly measure cytosolic dopamine in cultured midbrain neurons, it is confirmed that elevated DA(cyt) and its metabolites are neurotoxic and that genetic and pharmacological interventions that decrease DA(Cyt) provide neuroprotection.

TL;DR: Evidence is provided from immunolabel, RNA expression, and mass spectrometry analysis of postmortem samples that human catecholaminergic substantia nigra and locus coeruleus neurons express MHC-I, and that this molecule is inducible in human stem cell derived dopamine (DA) neurons.

TL;DR: It is shown that in GbaL444P/WT knockin mice, the L444P heterozygous Gba mutation triggers mitochondrial dysfunction by inhibiting autophagy and mitochondrial priming, two steps critical for the selective removal of dysfunctional mitochondria by Autophagy, a process known as mitophagy.