Autism research to advance with $3.6 million NIH grant to Scripps Florida team

Autism research to advance with $3.6 million NIH grant to Scripps Florida team JUPITER, FL May 22, 2018 Gavin Rumbaugh, PhD, of The Scripps Research Institute's Florida campus, will lead a 5-year, $3.6 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to continue studies of abnormal brain circuitry in autism.

The grant builds upon previous work from the Rumbaugh lab that uncovered a sensitive period in brain development during which an autism and intellectual disability risk gene called Syngap1 must function properly to promote assembly of circuitry needed for healthy social and cognitive development.

With the new funding, the team plans to focus on how this Syngap1 sensitive period regulates developmental processes that link sensory processing to learning, and how harmful Syngap1 mutations may lead to autism-associated behavioral changes through sensory dysfunction.

Sensory processing impairments are nearly universal in children with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism and intellectual disability. However, it is unclear how and where in the brain altered sensory processing impairs learning and drives altered behaviors in these disorders.

Our Syngap1 animal models are an excellent way to investigate the direct neurobiological links between autism-associated sensory processing impairments and behavioral changes also seen in these children, Rumbaugh says. Understanding how these processes are linked is critical to identifying the brain circuits that are not functioning properly and contributing to the cause of these disorders.

The work will be performed in collaboration with Scripps Research Associate Professor Courtney Miller, PhD, and Jason Christie, PhD, a researcher at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience. The proposed studies require the real-time measurement of brain activity in Syngap1 mice undergoing behavioral training in a variety of sensory detection tasks. Miller's expertise in developing complex rodent behavioral paradigms, and Christie's successful adoption of emerging tools to measure brain activity in behaving animals, are critical to the project, Rumbaugh says.

This project reflects the growing need for researchers with diverse expertise to collaborate in order to solve important problems in neuroscience, Rumbaugh says.

The number of the grant is R01 MH096847. About The Scripps Research Institute

The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is one of the worlds largest independent, not-for-profit organizations focusing on research in the biomedical sciences. TSRI is internationally recognized for its contributions to science and health, including its role in laying the foundation for new treatments for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, and other diseases. An institution that evolved from the Scripps Metabolic Clinic founded by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps in 1924, the institute now employs more than 2,500 people on its campuses in La Jolla, CA, and Jupiter, FL, where its renowned scientists including two Nobel laureates and 18 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering or Medicine work toward their next discoveries. The institutes graduate program, which awards PhD degrees in biology and chemistry, ranks among the top ten of its kind in the nation. In October 2016, TSRI announced a strategic affiliation with the California Institute for Biomedical Research (Calibr), representing a renewed commitment to the discovery and development of new medicines to address unmet medical needs. For more information, see www.scripps.edu.

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