Innovative approaches and therapeutic perspectives for early-onset neurodevelopmental disorders: from bench to bedside.

Book excerpt: In partnership with the Jacques Monod Conference “Genetics, environment, signaling & synaptic plasticity in developmental brain disorders: from bench to bedside", the Frontiers in Neuroscience Journal announces an article collection that will highlight cutting-edge research presented at the 2022 meeting from Monday 11th Apr - Friday 15th Apr in Roscoff (Brittany). Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDDs) are a highly heterogeneous group of disorders with a prevalence of 3% of the worldwide population. These disorders include Intellectual Disability (ID), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, specific learning disorder, motor and language disorder, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. Thus, NDDs are characterized by deficits in cognition, social interaction, behavior, and motor functioning as a result of abnormal brain development. Several of these phenotypes can co-exist in the same patient. Indeed, for instance, up to 50% of ASD patients display also ID. Similarly, the prevalence of epilepsy in ID patients is around 26%. This phenotypic overlap is also mirrored at the genetic and molecular levels. For instance, some pathways (e.g., Rho-GTPase, group I mGluRs, cAMP and WNT) have been found to be altered in different forms of NDDs, both of genetic and environmental origin.