Wei Hongen, Alberts Ian, Li Xiaohong
Central Laboratory, Shanxi Provincial People's Hospital, Affiliate of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China.
Department of Natural Sciences, LaGuardia CC, CUNY, New York, NY 11101, USA.
Int J Dev Neurosci. 2014 Aug;36:13-8. doi: 10.1016/j.ijdevneu.2014.04.004. Epub 2014 May 2.
Autism is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in social interaction, deficits in verbal and non-verbal communication, and repetitive behavior and restricted interests. The normal brain development during fetal brain development and the first year of life is critical to the behaviors and cognitions in adulthood. Programmed cell death (apoptosis) is an important mechanism that determines the size and shape of the brain and regulates the proper wiring of developing neuronal networks. Pathological activation of apoptotic death pathways under pathological conditions may lead to neuroanatomic abnormalities and possibly to developmental disabilities. It has been demonstrated a possible association between neural cell death and autism. Here, the abnormal apoptosis found in autism from postmortem and animal studies was reviewed and the possible mechanism was discussed.
自闭症是一种严重的神经发育障碍，其特征包括社交互动受损、言语和非言语沟通缺陷以及重复行为和兴趣受限。胎儿期大脑发育以及生命的第一年中正常的大脑发育对于成年后的行为和认知至关重要。程序性细胞死亡（凋亡）是一种重要机制，它决定大脑的大小和形状，并调节发育中神经网络的正确布线。病理条件下凋亡死亡途径的病理性激活可能导致神经解剖学异常，并可能导致发育障碍。已经证实神经细胞死亡与自闭症之间可能存在关联。在此，对死后研究和动物研究中在自闭症中发现的异常凋亡进行了综述，并讨论了可能的机制。
