Class
Article
College
College of Science
Department
Biology Department
Faculty Mentor
Sara Freeman
Presentation Type
Oral Presentation
Abstract
Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference present in about 1 in 36 people. Autistics tend to have differences in social communication, interests, and the ways they process the world around them. Autism is an important research area because many autistics suffer from poor mental health and can have difficulties with obtaining education and maintaining employment. By better understanding how autism works at every level we may be able to help autistics have better outcomes in future. This research is a follow-up to a study published by Freeman et al. in 2018. That study demonstrated differences in oxytocin receptor binding in the nucleus basalis of Meynert, a brain region that has been implicated in attention, arousal and cognition. In our study we ran fluorescent in-situ hybridization to check whether those differences in oxytocin receptor binding were being driven by differences in oxytocin mRNA production. We found that although oxytocin receptor mRNA production and oxytocin receptor binding density were significantly correlated, differences in mRNA production were insufficient to explain about half of the differences in oxytocin receptor binding density. This might be an issue of sample size or it might indicate that other mechanisms are regulating oxytocin receptor binding density in the nucleus basalis of Meynert. We plan to confirm the results of this analysis within the near future by analyzing another set of samples that were not included in this analysis.
Location
Logan, UT
Start Date
4-11-2023 12:30 PM
End Date
4-11-2023 1:30 PM
Included in
Autism, Light, and RNA - A Story in Three Parts
Logan, UT
Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference present in about 1 in 36 people. Autistics tend to have differences in social communication, interests, and the ways they process the world around them. Autism is an important research area because many autistics suffer from poor mental health and can have difficulties with obtaining education and maintaining employment. By better understanding how autism works at every level we may be able to help autistics have better outcomes in future. This research is a follow-up to a study published by Freeman et al. in 2018. That study demonstrated differences in oxytocin receptor binding in the nucleus basalis of Meynert, a brain region that has been implicated in attention, arousal and cognition. In our study we ran fluorescent in-situ hybridization to check whether those differences in oxytocin receptor binding were being driven by differences in oxytocin mRNA production. We found that although oxytocin receptor mRNA production and oxytocin receptor binding density were significantly correlated, differences in mRNA production were insufficient to explain about half of the differences in oxytocin receptor binding density. This might be an issue of sample size or it might indicate that other mechanisms are regulating oxytocin receptor binding density in the nucleus basalis of Meynert. We plan to confirm the results of this analysis within the near future by analyzing another set of samples that were not included in this analysis.