By researching fruit flies, neuroscientists of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin and the Berlin NeuroCure Cluster of Excellence were able to gain a better understanding of a meaningful mechanism of neuronal communication. Researchers around Stefan Sigrist and Dietmar Schmitz demonstrated the importance of a specific protein for signal transmission between nerve cells. This is of high significance as certain people with autism – a functional development disturbances of the brain – suffer from genetic defects in this protein. Therefore the findings could improve the possibility of treating this disease more effectively. The results are presented in the latest issue of the professional journal Science.

Read more in the complete press release of the Freie Universität Berlin.

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