This study revealed that both VPA-exposed ASD model marmosets and control marmosets showed similar diurnal changes in cortisol levels, which were lower in the afternoon than in the morning. However, heightened cortisol levels were observed in VPA-exposed marmosets at the times examined in this study. These results are consistent with those of ASD in humans.

A research team of the University of Tokyo has successfully elucidated a new mechanism of the brain by which a complex neural network, including interareal connections in the cerebral cortex, is efficiently formed during development. This is the first study investigating comprehensively how interareal connections among cortical and thalamic regions are formed during development. This study is expected to be applied in the future to treatments for diseases such as congenital blindness and to circuit formation algorithms to improve an artificial intelligence.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a highly heritable, complex disorder in which rare variants contribute significantly to disease risk. This case-control exome study showed that rare variants related to synaptic function are associated with ASD susceptibility in the Japanese population. In particular, we strengthen the evidence regarding the role of ABCA13, a synaptic function-related gene. The results of this research have been published in Translational Psychiatry.

This study found that the autism model marmoset showed a strong correlation between the time spent looking at adult marmosets during childhood and autism-like symptoms later in life. These results suggest that social attention to others at an early age may be a target for early treatment of autism and that autism model marmosets may be useful tool for early therapy development.

An Alzheimer’s disease (AD) mouse model that is useful for development of drugs such as BACE1 inhibitors is generated by genome editing technology. This AD mouse model recapitulated endosomal abnormality in neurons, one of characteristic changes in AD, indicating this model is also suitable to study cellular pathophysiology.

Acetylcholine is critical for learning, whose deficits is associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This study unravels the acetylcholine intracellular signaling for aversive learning, a major preliminary test for AD drugs. Moreover, AD drug donepezil enhances aversive learning through this signal. The findings imply the signal’s therapeutic potential for AD.

Opto-fMRI, which combines functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and optogenetics, has been widely used in rodents, but only a few successful cases have been reported in non-human primates. By conducting opto-fMRI with efficient optogenetics and ultra-high field 7 tesla MRI, this study succeeded in visualizing the brain network induced by optical stimulation of the monkey motor cortex.