Cyfip2 controls the acoustic startle threshold through FMRP, actin polymerization, and GABA receptor function.

Animals process a constant stream of sensory input, and to survive they must detect and respond to dangerous stimuli while ignoring innocuous or irrelevant ones. Behavioral responses are elicited when certain properties of a stimulus such as its intensity or size reach a critical value, and such behavioral thresholds can be a simple and effective mechanism to filter sensory information. For example, the acoustic startle response is a conserved and stereotyped defensive behavior induced by sudden loud sounds, but dysregulation of the threshold to initiate this behavior can result in startle hypersensitivity that is associated with sensory processing disorders including schizophrenia and autism.

Natural antisense transcript of regulates the amplitude of the mouse circadian clock.

In mammals, a set of core clock genes form transcription-translation feedback loops to generate circadian oscillations. We and others recently identified a novel transcript at the () locus that is transcribed from the antisense strand of This transcript, is expressed rhythmically and antiphasic to mRNA, leading to our hypothesis that and mutually inhibit each other's expression and form a double negative feedback loop. By perturbing the expression of , we found that transcription, but not transcript, represses However, does not repress as knockdown led to a decrease in the level, indicating that forms a single negative feedback loop with and maintains the level of within the oscillatory range.