Cell-type specific manipulation of neural circuits is required for the treatment of neurological disorders such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. Precise control of neural circuits will enable the development of neuromodulation therapies for these debilitating conditions. Existing technologies to control neural activity offer limited possibilities.

Presidents of San Antonio’s four largest research institutions today announced they are providing $800,000, collectively, for a major initiative in precision therapeutics. The process of precision therapeutics ultimately leads to breakthrough treatments that can be individualized to specific patient populations.

Cognitive deficits are major disabling impairments associated with autism and schizophrenia. Because theunderlying genetic and cellular mechanisms of such deficits are still poorly understood, mechanism-basedtherapeutic options do not exist, limiting the effective integration of patients into society. Previous clinical workhas shown that executive functions such as working memory and cognitive flexibility start to lag behind fromadolescence to adulthood in individuals with autism and schizophrenia.

Transposable elements, known colloquially as ?jumping genes,? constitute approximately 45% of the humangenome. Cells utilize epigenetic defenses to limit transposable element jumping, including formation of silencingheterochromatin and generation of piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), small RNAs that facilitate clearance oftransposable element transcripts. Transposable element activation has recently been identified as a keymediator of neuronal death in tauopathies, a group of neurodegenerative disorders that are pathologicallydefined by deposits of tau protein in the brain.

Medications to help treat addiction exist for many major drugs of abuse, but not for psychostimulants, such asamphetamine, and its congeners. They are also lacking for increasingly used synthetic drugs designed to mimicthe actions of known psychostimulants. Both known and new psychoactive substances continue to pose a majorand increasing public health threat. To develop effective treatments, the mechanisms by which these stimulantsproduce their abuse-related effects need to be fully understood.