Although deficits in the MFG and caudate are tentative, given few studies specifically examining these regions relating to alerting, the ACC abnormality may constitute a fundamental deficit which is related to other
cognitive domains. Knowledge of deficits in alerting and executive control could be used to facilitate new adjunctive interventions for individuals with ASD, thus satisfying an important initiative to develop ASD-specific neurobehavioral domains. Acknowledgments We thank Michael I. Posner for making insightful comments, Jack M. Gorman Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical for his kind help, and Cheuk Y. Tang and Kevin G. Guise for assistance with data collection. Conflict of Interest None declared.
Numerous neurotransmitter systems contribute to the normal development and function of Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the auditory sensory (cochlear) apparatus and the circuitry of the central nervous system. This includes members of
the excitatory ligand-activated Transmembrane Transporters inhibitor nicotinic acetylcholine receptor family (nAChR; Albuquerque et al. 2009). The nAChR subunit family consists of 16 distinct subunits that in various pentameric combinations Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical form ligand-activated ion channels that each exhibit uniquely specialized pharmacological and functional properties (Albuquerque et al. 2009). One of these is the homomeric alpha7 nAChR (α7) whose functional uniqueness is in part due to its expression by both neuronal and non-neuronal cells
in many tissues throughout the body and because it is responsive to multiple agonists (including acetylcholine and choline as well as nicotine). This results Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical in its ability to modulate a diverse range of cellular functions including Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical cell growth, cell survival, neurotransmission, and inflammation (Gahring and Rogers 2005; Levin et al. 2006; Albuquerque et al. 2009). Members of the nAChR family contribute to essentially all aspects of the auditory sensory system function and development (Morley and Happe 2000; Morley 2005). This includes widespread changes aminophylline in expression during embryogenesis that optimizes their contribution to signal transduction, fine-tuning of sensory hair cells, and modulating central auditory circuit neurotransmission (Elgoyhen et al. 1994, 2001a; Happe and Morley 1998; Vetter et al. 1999, 2007; Morley and Happe 2000; Katz et al. 2004; Morley 2005). This functional diversity is in part accomplished through strict spatiotemporal control of different nAChR subunit expression, as has been extensively described for the nAChRs composed of either homomeric (α9) or heteromeric (α9 + α10) subunits (Elgoyhen et al. 1994; Vetter et al. 1999, 2007; Elgoyhen et al., 2001b; Murthy et al. 2009).