{"id":217056,"date":"2025-07-02T22:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T03:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/researchers-discover-link-between-key-protein-and-brain-synapse-development"},"modified":"2025-07-02T22:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T03:05:07","slug":"researchers-discover-link-between-key-protein-and-brain-synapse-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/researchers-discover-link-between-key-protein-and-brain-synapse-development","title":{"rendered":"Researchers discover link between key protein and brain synapse development"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/researchers-discover-link-between-key-protein-and-brain-synapse-development.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists have uncovered how a protein helps build and maintain vital brain connections, providing insights into the neurological problems experienced by people with a rare form of muscular dystrophy known as dystroglycanopathy.<\/p>\n<p>The research conducted at Oregon Health &amp; Science University and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s42003-025-08323-1\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Communications Biology<\/i> reveals that the protein Dystroglycan plays a critical role in forming and maintaining connections between nerve cells in the cerebellum\u2014the part of the brain responsible for movement coordination and motor learning.<\/p>\n<p>In people with dystroglycanopathy, <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/genetic+mutations\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">genetic mutations<\/a> in the protein affect not only muscles but also the brain. The condition is a type of congenital muscular dystrophy, a group of inherited disorders that appear at birth or in early infancy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have uncovered how a protein helps build and maintain vital brain connections, providing insights into the neurological problems experienced by people with a rare form of muscular dystrophy known as dystroglycanopathy. The research conducted at Oregon Health &amp; Science University and published in Communications Biology reveals that the protein Dystroglycan plays a critical role [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217056\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}