Scientists compared the genome of the lazy bees with genomes of people with autism

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Ученые сравнили геном «ленивых» пчел с геномом людей с аутизмомThe discovery of these Parallels will help to understand the complicated history of autism

Working bees are constantly gathering nectar, building and protecting the hive, serving the uterus and only a very few of them are avoiding work and interaction with other bees.

Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a world-renowned expert on bees gene Robinson (Gene Robinson) and his colleagues showed that the profile of activity of the genome in these bees is similar to the profile of people with autism spectrum disorders.

In spite of the enormous difference between the nervous systems of humans and insects, at a fundamental level, even such complex forms of behavior organized in a similar way.

The article, published in the journal PNAS, the scientists describe experiments in which they recorded a video of the behavior of a group of bees, noting the reaction of each of them in different social situations. It could be, for example, new working bees (usually bees attacked the alien) or a young Queen (she awakens from a “normal” worker bees the instinct of courtship and protection). Such experiments were repeatedly put on 245 groups of 10 insects, obtained from seven different colonies.

Scientists ranked all the bees in the severity of the “right” answer, noting that almost all demonstrate the desired response in at least one of these situations, and only 16 percent of the “asocial” did not react in both cases. These insects were dissected to examine the activity of genes in their neurons of the mushroom bodies – these structures have their “brain” can be called a conditional analog of the cerebral cortex: it is believed that they realized the higher brain functions of insects, including koordiniruyutsya challenging behaviors.

In these neurons the “asocial” bees, scientists have identified a group of genes that do not exhibit activity of the bees with the “normal” behavior. This set is compared with the profiles of gene activity characteristic of people with various disorders of behavior and mind – schizophrenia, depression and autism, showed similarities with the last of them. The number of genes hyperactive and “asocial” bees, and autism, the authors identify the genes associated with proteins-carriers of tones through the membranes of neurons as well as genes of heat shock proteins involved in the development of stress reactions.

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While it is unknown exactly how these genes and corresponding proteins associated with changes in behaviour and sociality. However, the discovery of unexpected Parallels between the level of regulation of behavior in bees and in humans gives hope that the insects will be good model organism for new research and will help to understand the complicated history of autism.

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