Inhibitory synapses act as the brakes in the brain, preventing it from becoming overexcited. Researchers thought they were less sophisticated than their excitatory counterparts because relatively few proteins were known to exist at these structures. But a new study by the Soderling Lab, published Sept. 9 in Science, overturns that assumption, uncovering 140 proteins that have never been mapped to inhibitory synapses. Its like these proteins were locked away in a safe for over 50 years, and we believe that our study has cracked open the safe, said the studys senior investigator Scott Soderling, an Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Neurobiology at Duke. And theres a lot of gems. In particular, 27 of these proteins have already been implicated by genome-wide association studies as having a role in autism, intellectual disability and epilepsy, Soderling said, suggesting that their mechanisms at the synapse could provide new avenues to the understanding and treatment of these disorders. You can read more about this research on Duke Today.

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Department of Cell Biology