Topic: TRAP2

Neuropsychiatric disorders affect approximately 1 in 8 people globally, stemming from a complex interplay of genetics and environment, including copy number variations like the 15q13.3 microdeletion associated with heightened risks of schizophrenia and autism. Limited medication options coupled with social, cognitive, and adaptive challenges hinder the integration of affected individuals into society due to insufficient understanding of underlying pathophysiological mechanisms. To address this, we developed a triple transgenic mouse model combining the 15q13.3+/- microdeletion with TRAP2;Ai9,

Background:We recently reported experimental and theoretical evidence for a long-term mechanism that amplifies the response of a subset of neurons that were recruited during fear learning that was termed “memory amplification mechanism”. This mechanism is mediated CaMKII dependent twofold increase of the strength of all inhibitory and all excitatory synapses in the cell. The key function of the amplification mechanism is to promote an already-formed memory to a dominant memory.Aim:Using TRAP2 genetically modified mice, we investigated the long-term retention of traumatic memory through an ampl

Male predominance is one of the least understood characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). While more than a hundred genes are involved in ASD, only a few of them show sex differences in behavior. In a previous work, we found that male mice harboring a mutation in the Pogz gene (Pogz+/-) show sexually dimorphic overly friendly behavior in several sociability assays. Mapping the engaged neurons during social recognition revealed that in Pogz+/- males, there are more activated neurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) than control and Pogz+/- female mice. To characterize the morphophysi

Both classical activity mapping based on the induction of activity-regulated genes and novel genetic methods to label and control the activity of neurons indicate that memories are deposited in discrete neuronal ensembles in the hippocampus, amygdala and other brain regions involved in memory formation. However, the creation of a brain-wide map for engram formation and stability has proven to be a challenging endeavor that has been only partially solved. Among the methods to label active neurons, the Targeted Recombination in Active Populations v2 (TRAP2) mouse strain sticks out for enabling t