Cardiometabolic Effects of Antipsychotics in Challenging Behavior and Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Patients With Intellectual Disability.

Introduction Despite the well-established association between antipsychotics and metabolic adverse effects in psychiatric disorders, the variable influence of long-term and off-label antipsychotic medication on behavioral disorders has not been investigated in detail. Objective To clarify the impact of antipsychotic use on challenging behavior (CB) and neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS), we evaluated the clinical findings and cardiometabolic effects in individuals with intellectual disability (ID) hospitalized in our residential facility for profoundly disabled patients. Patients and methods A total of 130 individuals hospitalized in our residential facility were retrospectively investigated and divided into two groups - individuals with and without CB and NPS. Antipsychotics (first- and second-generation antipsychotics) are prescribed to all individuals in the CB and NPS-positive ID group. Conversely, antipsychotics were not prescribed to any individuals in the CB- and NPS-negative ID groups. To investigate the cardiometabolic effects of antipsychotics, the following metabolic parameters were measured: body weight (BW), total calorie intake per day, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, serum lipid levels (total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride), and corrected QT interval (QTc) of electrocardiogram (ECG). The etiology of disabilities, level of ID, severity of motor disability, and presence or absence of epilepsy were also examined. Results Two main results were derived: (1) Autism spectrum disorder was the most predominant etiology in individuals with CB and NPS who were prescribed antipsychotics, and (2) the mean values of metabolic parameters were all normal in both medicated and nonmedicated individuals, but the total calorie intake was significantly higher in individuals who were prescribed antipsychotics. Conclusions Our investigation demonstrated that in individuals with an adequate energy intake, most metabolic parameters can be maintained within normal limits. We suggest that body weight control is the primary step in avoiding the cardiometabolic adverse effects of antipsychotics in intellectually disabled individuals with CB and NPS.

Self-injury as a predominant challenging behavior in epilepsy: A study in a residential facility for profoundly disabled patients.

BACKGROUND: The association between challenging behavior (CB) and epilepsy in people with intellectual disability (ID) remains largely controversial. AIM: To clarify the correlation between CB and epilepsy, we investigated the clinical characteristics of CB in both people with and without epilepsy among individuals with ID hospitalized in our residential facility. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: A total of 63 individuals with CB was retrospectively investigated using the Behavior Problems Inventory, and the following items were collected from the medical records: sex, age, hospitalization period, etiology and risk factors, level of ID, type of CB, administration of psychotropic drugs, presence or absence of epilepsy and clinical features of epilepsy. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Almost all individuals with CB showed profound ID. There was no significant difference in the rate of CB between people with and without epilepsy. A type analysis of CB revealed that self-injurious behavior was observed more frequently in epilepsy cases (66.7 %) than in cases without epilepsy (36.4 %) (p = 0.015), and self-injurious behavior was the predominant clinical form in people with epilepsy among the three subgroups of CB (self-injurious, aggressive and self-injurious and aggressive behavior). CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The high incidence of self-injurious behavior in epilepsy with profound disabilities may imply the presence of common pathological basis of self-injurious behavior and epilepsy.

Rapidly evolving phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase Gmppc1 and Gmppc7 are highly expressed in the external seed coat of immature soybean seeds.

Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) is a carbon fixation enzyme which probably plays crucial roles in seed development. A greater number of PEPC isoforms are encoded in the soybean genome, while most of the PEPC isoforms are functionally unknown. In this study, we investigated on soybean PEPC expressed in the external layer of seed coat (ELSC) during seed formation. PEPC activity in ELSC ranged from 0.24 to 1.0 U/g F.W., which could be comparable to those in whole seeds at U per dry matter. Public RNA-Seq data in separated soybean seed tissues revealed that six plant-type PEPC isogenes were substantially expressed in ELSC, and Gmppc1 and Gmppc7 were highly expressed in hourglass cells of ELSC. Gene Ontology enrichment of co-expressed genes with Gmppc1 and Gmppc7 implicated a role of these isogenes in assisting energy production and cellulose biosynthesis. Comparison of PEPC sequences from 16 leguminous species hypothesized adaptive evolution of the Gmppc1 and Gmppc7 lineage after divergence from the other plant-type PEPC lineages. Molecular diversification of these plant-type PEPC was possibly accomplished by adaptation to the functions of the soybean seed tissues. This study indicates that energy demand in immature seeds may be a driving force for the molecular evolution of PEPC.

Progression of motor disability in cerebral palsy: The role of concomitant epilepsy.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to investigate the clinical characteristics of epilepsy affecting the progression of motor disabilities in cerebral palsy (CP). METHODS: CP patients were retrospectively followed for 15 years from January 2005 to January 2020, and the following items were collected from the medical records: sex, age, etiology, and the clinical features of epilepsy. All patients were divided into two groups of unchanging CP and worsening CP based on whether or not they showed progression of motor disabilities during 15 years' hospitalization, respectively. RESULTS: In total, we evaluated 65 CP cases who had been continuously hospitalized for more than 15 years. Twenty-eight patients had unchanging CP, showing no changes in motor disabilities for 15 years, while 37 had worsening CP, showing a worsening of the motor disabilities over 15 years. Most epilepsy patients with unchanging CP showed their first seizure onset during the first year of life (62.5 %), while the epilepsy patients with worsening CP showed the onset from 1 year of age (70.8 %) (p = 0.03). Daily or weekly seizure frequency was significantly more apparent in cases of worsening CP (25.0 %) than in cases of unchanging CP (p = 0.03). CONCLUSION: The younger the age at the time of seizure onset, the less severe the consequences appear to be. Furthermore, increased seizure frequency seems to be directly related to reduced functional connections involving the whole brain. These two factors result in progressive motor disabilities, including intellectual, sensory and behavioral difficulties in CP patients.

The plant-type phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase Gmppc2 is developmentally induced in immature soy seeds at the late maturation stage: a potential protein biomarker for seed chemical composition.

Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase (PEPC) is a carbon-fixing enzyme with critical roles in seed development. Previously we observed a positive correlation between PEPC activity and protein content in mature seeds among soybean cultivars and varietal differences of PEPC activity in immature seeds, which is concordant with seed protein accumulation. Here, we report a PEPC isoform (Gmppc2) which is preferentially expressed in immature soybean seeds at the late maturation stage. Gmppc2 was co-expressed with enzyme genes involved in starch degradation: α-amylase, hexokinase, and α-glucan phosphorylase. Gmppc2 was developmentally induced in the external seed coats, internal seed coats, hypocotyls, and cotyledons at the late maturation stage. The expression of Gmppc2 protein was negatively regulated by the application of a nitrogen fertilizer, which suppressed nodule formation. These results imply that Gmppc2 is involved in the metabolism of nitrogen originated from nodules into seeds, and Gmppc2 might be applicable as a biomarker of seed protein content.Abbreviations: PEP: phosphoenolpyruvate; PEPC: phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase; RNA-Seq: RNA sequencing; PCA: principal component analysis; SE: standard error.

Complete chloroplast genome sequence and phylogenetic analysis of wasabi (Eutrema japonicum) and its relatives.

In Japan, two Eutrema species, wasabi (Eutrema japonicum, the important traditional Japanese condiment) and yuriwasabi (E. tenue), have been recognized as endemic species. We sequenced complete chloroplast (cp) genomes of seven wasabi and yuriwasabi accessions from Japan to study their phylogeny and evolution, using molecular dating of species divergence. Phylogenetic analyses of the complete cp DNA of these two Japanese species and five other Eurasian Eutrema species revealed that wasabi and yuriwasabi did not form a monophyletic group. One yuriwasabi accession (Gifu) formed a clade with E. yunnanense from China, indicating that this accession should be considered as a different species from the other yuriwasabi accessions. We reveal that Japanese Eutrema species diverged from the 'E. yunnanense-yuriwasabi (Gifu)' clade approximately 1.3 million years ago (Mya), suggesting that the connection between Japan and the Eurasian continent has existed more recently than the Quaternary period. The abundance of cp sequence data in this study also allowed the detection of genetic differentiation among wasabi cultivars. The two polymorphic sites detected between 'Fujidaruma' and 'Shimane No.3' were used to develop genotyping markers. The cp genome information provided here will thus inform the evolutionary histories of Japanese Eutrema species and help in genotyping wasabi cultivars.

Interneuron dysfunction in epilepsy: An experimental approach using immature brain insults to induce neuronal migration disorders.

The main elements of the microcircuits in the cerebral cortex are excitatory glutamatergic pyramidal cells and inhibitory γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) interneurons. Hypofunction/degeneration of GABAergic interneurons has been hypothesized to be a key to the neural circuit dysfunction that underlies epileptogenesis and the development of recurrent spontaneous seizures. Using two experimental animal models of neuronal migration disorders, this review reports that the insults to the immature developing brain causes interneurons to fail to undergo normal processes such as production, migration, and organization. These results represent critical evidence that supports a link between interneuron dysfunction and epilepsy.

Identification of 13 Spirogyra species (Zygnemataceae) by traits of sexual reproduction induced under laboratory culture conditions.

The genus Spirogyra is abundant in freshwater habitats worldwide, and comprises approximately 380 species. Species assignment is often difficult because identification is based on the characteristics of sexual reproduction in wild-collected samples and spores produced in the field or laboratory culture. We developed an identification procedure based on an improved methodology for inducing sexual conjugation in laboratory-cultivated filaments. We tested the modified procedure on 52 newly established and genetically different strains collected from diverse localities in Japan. We induced conjugation or aplanospore formation under controlled laboratory conditions in 15 of the 52 strains, which allowed us to identify 13 species. Two of the thirteen species were assignable to a related but taxonomically uncertain genus, Temnogyra, based on the unique characteristics of sexual reproduction. Our phylogenetic analysis demonstrated that the two Temnogyra species are included in a large clade comprising many species of Spirogyra. Thus, separation of Temnogyra from Spirogyra may be untenable, much as the separation of Sirogonium from Spirogyra is not supported by molecular analyses.

Genome sequence analysis of the fairy ring-forming fungus Lepista sordida and gene candidates for interaction with plants.

Circular patterns called "fairy rings" in fields are a natural phenomenon that arises through the interaction between basidiomycete fungi and plants. Acceleration or inhibition of plant vegetative growth and the formation of mushroom fruiting bodies are both commonly observed when fairy rings form. The gene of an enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of these regulators was recently isolated in the fairy ring-forming fungus, Lepista sordida. To identify other genes involved in L. sordida fairy ring formation, we used previously generated sequence data to produce a more complete draft genome sequence for this species. Finally, we predicted the metabolic pathways of the plant growth regulators and 29 candidate enzyme-coding genes involved in fairy-ring formation based on gene annotations. Comparisons of protein coding genes among basidiomycete fungi revealed two nitric oxide synthase gene candidates that were uniquely encoded in genomes of fairy ring-forming fungi. These results provide a basis for the discovery of genes involved in fairy ring formation and for understanding the mechanisms involved in the interaction between fungi and plants. We also constructed a new web database F-RINGS ( http://bioinf.mind.meiji.ac.jp/f-rings/ ) to provide the comprehensive genomic information for L. sordida.

Repeated inversions within a pannier intron drive diversification of intraspecific colour patterns of ladybird beetles.

How genetic information is modified to generate phenotypic variation within a species is one of the central questions in evolutionary biology. Here we focus on the striking intraspecific diversity of >200 aposematic elytral (forewing) colour patterns of the multicoloured Asian ladybird beetle, Harmonia axyridis, which is regulated by a tightly linked genetic locus h. Our loss-of-function analyses, genetic association studies, de novo genome assemblies, and gene expression data reveal that the GATA transcription factor gene pannier is the major regulatory gene located at the h locus, and suggest that repeated inversions and cis-regulatory modifications at pannier led to the expansion of colour pattern variation in H. axyridis. Moreover, we show that the colour-patterning function of pannier is conserved in the seven-spotted ladybird beetle, Coccinella septempunctata, suggesting that H. axyridis' extraordinary intraspecific variation may have arisen from ancient modifications in conserved elytral colour-patterning mechanisms in ladybird beetles.

Medical certification reduces the number of children requiring allergen elimination diets for school lunches.

BACKGROUND: Following the increase in the number of children with food allergies, support systems are now required for school lunches, but a large-scale factual investigation has not been carried out. OBJECTIVE: We evaluated the features of elimination diet due to food allergy and the support system in kindergartens and schools. METHODS: A prefecture-based questionnaire survey regarding measures for food allergies in school lunches of all kindergartens, public elementary schools, and public junior high schools (631 facilities) was conducted in Oita Prefecture, Japan. RESULTS: The recovery rate of the questionnaire was 99.5%, which included 106,008 students in total. A total of 1,562 children (1.5%) required elimination diets. The rate of children on elimination diets in kindergartens and elementary/junior high schools that required medical certification by a physician was 1.2% (324 among 27,761 children), which was significantly lower than the 1.8% of children (1,227 among 68,576 students) on elimination diets at the request of guardians without the need for medical certification (p < 0.0001). A total of 43.9% of the kindergartens and schools said that they would contact guardians if symptoms were observed after accidental ingestion, while a low 8.1% stated that they provided support to children themselves, including the administration of adrenaline auto-injectors. CONCLUSION: Medical certification reduces the number of children requiring elimination diets, but it has not been adequately implemented. Furthermore, waiting to contact guardians after symptoms are observed may lead to the delayed treatment of anaphylaxis. Cooperation between physicians and teachers is desired to avoid the overdiagnosis and undertreatment of children with food allergies.

The Role of Nutritional Supplements in the Treatment of ADHD: What the Evidence Says.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common behavioral disorder in children and adolescents and may persist into adulthood. Insufficient nutritional supply of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) and other components including various minerals has been suggested to play a role in the development of ADHD symptoms. This review presents the evidence regarding the role of nutritional PUFA, zinc, iron, and magnesium supplements in the treatment of ADHD with a focus on the critical evaluation of the relevant literature published from 2014 to April 2016. The evaluation of therapeutic nutritional LC-PUFA supplementation in ADHD has shown mixed and inconclusive results and at best marginal beneficial effects. The benefits of PUFAs are much smaller than the effect sizes observed for traditional pharmacological treatments of ADHD. The effectiveness of PUFA supplements in reducing medication dosage has been suggested but needs to be confirmed. Zinc, iron, and magnesium supplementation may reduce ADHD symptoms in children with or at high risk of deficiencies in these minerals. However, convincing evidence in this regard is lacking.

The biosynthetic pathway of 2-azahypoxanthine in fairy-ring forming fungus.

"Fairy rings" resulting from fungus-stimulated plant growth occur all over the world. In 2010, 2-azahypoxanthine (AHX) from a fungus Lepista sordida was identified as the "fairy" that stimulates plant growth. Furthermore, 2-aza-8-oxohypoxanthine (AOH) was isolated as a common metabolite of AHX in plants, and the endogenous existence of AHX and AOH in plants was proved. The structure of AHX allowed us to hypothesize that AHX was derived from 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide ribonucleotide (AICAR). Thus, we performed a feeding experiment that supplied AICAR to L. sordida. Consumption of AICAR and accumulation of AHX were observed after feeding. The mycelia extract had enzymatic activity of adenine/5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide phosphoribosyltransferase (APRT). APRT gene of L. sordida revealed its structural characteristics in homology modeling and showed transcriptional enhancement after feeding. These results support that AHX was synthesized from AICAR and AHX biosynthesis was transcriptionally controlled by AICAR, indicating the presence of novel purine metabolic pathway in L. sordida.

Remitted epilepsy with dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumor involving the thalamus.

Dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumors (DNT) are benign hamartomatous tumors characterized by intractable epilepsy and common localization in the supratentorial cortex, but thalamic involvement in DNT is extremely rare. A 2-year 4-month-old boy presented with intractable epilepsy due to a tumorous lesion in the frontal lobe expanding to the thalamus. Under chronic intracranial electrocorticography guidance, partial lesionectomy with adjacent cortical resection was performed, and the lesion was pathologically diagnosed as DNT, complex form. Subsequently, the seizures completely disappeared without any neurological deficits despite the presence of full residual thalamic lesions. The epileptogenicity of DNT is closely associated with various clinicopathological factors, and the thalamic contribution to the seizure activity remains unclear. Due to the essential epileptogenic characteristics of DNT, the residual thalamic lesions and associated clinical features should be strictly observed in the future in the present case.

Identification of reference genes for quantitative expression analysis using large-scale RNA-seq data of Arabidopsis thaliana and model crop plants.

In quantitative gene expression analysis, normalization using a reference gene as an internal control is frequently performed for appropriate interpretation of the results. Efforts have been devoted to exploring superior novel reference genes using microarray transcriptomic data and to evaluating commonly used reference genes by targeting analysis. However, because the number of specifically detectable genes is totally dependent on probe design in the microarray analysis, exploration using microarray data may miss some of the best choices for the reference genes. Recently emerging RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) provides an ideal resource for comprehensive exploration of reference genes since this method is capable of detecting all expressed genes, in principle including even unknown genes. We report the results of a comprehensive exploration of reference genes using public RNA-seq data from plants such as Arabidopsis thaliana (Arabidopsis), Glycine max (soybean), Solanum lycopersicum (tomato) and Oryza sativa (rice). To select reference genes suitable for the broadest experimental conditions possible, candidates were surveyed by the following four steps: (1) evaluation of the basal expression level of each gene in each experiment; (2) evaluation of the expression stability of each gene in each experiment; (3) evaluation of the expression stability of each gene across the experiments; and (4) selection of top-ranked genes, after ranking according to the number of experiments in which the gene was expressed stably. Employing this procedure, 13, 10, 12 and 21 top candidates for reference genes were proposed in Arabidopsis, soybean, tomato and rice, respectively. Microarray expression data confirmed that the expression of the proposed reference genes under broad experimental conditions was more stable than that of commonly used reference genes. These novel reference genes will be useful for analyzing gene expression profiles across experiments carried out under various experimental conditions.

Pleurochrysome: A Web Database of Pleurochrysis Transcripts and Orthologs Among Heterogeneous Algae.

Pleurochrysis is a coccolithophorid genus, which belongs to the Coccolithales in the Haptophyta. The genus has been used extensively for biological research, together with Emiliania in the Isochrysidales, to understand distinctive features between the two coccolithophorid-including orders. However, molecular biological research on Pleurochrysis such as elucidation of the molecular mechanism behind coccolith formation has not made great progress at least in part because of lack of comprehensive gene information. To provide such information to the research community, we built an open web database, the Pleurochrysome (http://bioinf.mind.meiji.ac.jp/phapt/), which currently stores 9,023 unique gene sequences (designated as UNIGENEs) assembled from expressed sequence tag sequences of P. haptonemofera as core information. The UNIGENEs were annotated with gene sequences sharing significant homology, conserved domains, Gene Ontology, KEGG Orthology, predicted subcellular localization, open reading frames and orthologous relationship with genes of 10 other algal species, a cyanobacterium and the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This sequence and annotation information can be easily accessed via several search functions. Besides fundamental functions such as BLAST and keyword searches, this database also offers search functions to explore orthologous genes in the 12 organisms and to seek novel genes. The Pleurochrysome will promote molecular biological and phylogenetic research on coccolithophorids and other haptophytes by helping scientists mine data from the primary transcriptome of P. haptonemofera.

Pre-school development and behavior screening with a consecutive support programs for 5-year-olds reduces the rate of school refusal.

OBJECTIVE: The efficacy of pre-school health consultation in improving developmental and behavioral problems at 5-years of age with follow-up consecutive educational support before and after entrance into regular elementary school for 8 years in a rural city, Taketa, Oita prefecture, was evaluated. METHODS: This program involved a survey with a three-step method as follows. Step 1: interviews and checklists conducted by public health nurses and nursery/kindergarten teachers for all children. Step 2: medical screening for all children performed by a local/home-school doctor. Step 3: diagnosis in selected children carried out by child neurologists, special support education teachers and clinical/school psychologists. Subsequently, for 1-2 years until entrance into elementary school, these children and their parents were given speech, behavioral and mental support as well as group play therapy in nursery/kindergarten. RESULTS: During the 8-years study period, 56 children (5.4%) were diagnosed with developmental disorders and six children were diagnosed with maltreatment by their parents among 1165 eligible children. Of these subjects, 40 children received support consecutively after entrance into school, 38 of whom entered regular elementary school and 32 attended regular classes for 1-6 years. A total of 39 of 40 children have attended school without refusal. Moreover, the total number of students refusing to attend school in elementary school decreased for 3 years from 8 of 3246 children (0.25%) in 2006-2008 and 13 of 2889 children (0.45%) in 2009-2011 to only 1 of 2646 children (0.04%) in 2012-2014. CONCLUSIONS: Pre-school developmental-behavioral screening and consecutive support programs in a rural city reduced the number of students refusing to attend school.

Interneuron Dysfunction in Syndromic Autism: Recent Advances.

Autism is an extremely heterogeneous disorder, but its frequent cooccurrence with epilepsy leads to speculation that there may be common mechanisms associated with these disorders. Inhibitory interneurons are considered to be the main cellular elements that control hyperexcitability in the brain, and interneuron dysfunction can cause pathological hyperexcitability linked to seizure susceptibility or epilepsy. This review summarizes some of the recent advances that support the relationship between interneuron dysfunction and cognitive impairment in human syndromic autism, with particular reference to the pathophysiological findings of murine experimental models of autism. Alterations in x03B3;-aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic circuits include a wide variety of neurobiological dysfunctions and do not simply involve the loss or gain of any given type of inhibitory mechanism. The characteristics of interneuron dysfunction in each murine model of autism differ for each syndrome, and these diversities may be due to differences in genetic backgrounds or some other currently unknown variances. Future studies should give us a greater understanding of the involvement of different classes of GABAergic interneurons and allow us to define the relationship between the precise pathophysiological mechanisms and the corresponding clinical phenotypes in autism.

Comprehensive analysis of transcriptome response to salinity stress in the halophytic turf grass Sporobolus virginicus.

The turf grass Sporobolus virginicus is halophyte and has high salinity tolerance. To investigate the molecular basis of its remarkable tolerance, we performed Illumina high-throughput RNA sequencing on roots and shoots of a S. virginicus genotype under normal and saline conditions. The 130 million short reads were assembled into 444,242 unigenes. A comparative analysis of the transcriptome with rice and Arabidopsis transcriptome revealed six turf grass-specific unigenes encoding transcription factors. Interestingly, all of them showed root specific expression and five of them encode bZIP type transcription factors. Another remarkable transcriptional feature of S. virginicus was activation of specific pathways under salinity stress. Pathway enrichment analysis suggested transcriptional activation of amino acid, pyruvate, and phospholipid metabolism. Up-regulation of several unigenes, previously shown to respond to salt stress in other halophytes was also observed. Gene Ontology enrichment analysis revealed that unigenes assigned as proteins in response to water stress, such as dehydrin and aquaporin, and transporters such as cation, amino acid, and citrate transporters, and H(+)-ATPase, were up-regulated in both shoots and roots under salinity. A correspondence analysis of the enriched pathways in turf grass cells, but not in rice cells, revealed two groups of unigenes similarly up-regulated in the turf grass in response to salt stress; one of the groups, showing excessive up-regulation under salinity, included unigenes homologos to salinity responsive genes in other halophytes. Thus, the present study identified candidate genes involved in salt tolerance of S. virginicus. This genetic resource should be valuable for understanding the mechanisms underlying high salt tolerance in S. virginicus. This information can also provide insight into salt tolerance in other halophytes.

Role of Microglia in Autism: Recent Advances.

The neurobiological basis for autism remains poorly understood. However, the neuroinflammation processes play an important role in the induction of autistic behavioral changes. Microglial cells can exhibit widely differing functions during brain development, including synaptogenesis and stem cell proliferation, in addition to playing a role in the innate immunity. Mounting evidence indicates that microglial activation or dysfunction can profoundly affect neural development, resulting in neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. These mechanisms in autism have been investigated using neuropathological studies of human autopsy brains, a large number of murine experimental models and in vivo neuroimaging studies of the human brain. The purpose of this review is to discuss microglial activation or dysfunction and to highlight the detrimental role that microglia play in the development of autism. The recent advances presented in this review support that further elucidation of the mechanisms and kinetics of microglial responses will help to establish a window for therapeutic intervention in individuals with autism.