Chronic subconvulsive activity during early postnatal life produces autistic behavior in the absence of neurotoxicity in the juvenile weanling period

Behavioural Brain Research
Linda K. Friedman, Brandon Kahen

Abstract

The diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) varies from very mild to severe social and cognitive impairments. We hypothesized that epigenetic subconvulsive activity in early postnatal life may contribute to the development of autistic behavior in a sex-related manner. Low doses of kainic acid (KA) (25-100 μg) were administered to rat pups for 15 days beginning on postnatal (P) day 6 to chronically elevate neuronal activity. A battery of classical and novel behavioral tests was used, and sex differences were observed. Our novel open handling test revealed that ASD males nose poked more often and ASD females climbed and escaped more frequently with age. In the social interaction test, ASD males were less social than ASD females who were more anxious in handling and elevated plus maze (EPM) tasks. To evaluate group dynamics, sibling and non-sibling control and experimental animals explored 3 different shaped novel social environments. Control pups huddled quickly and more frequently in all environments whether they socialized with littermates or non-siblings compared to ASD groups. Non-sibling ASD pups were erratic and huddled in smaller groups. In the object recognition test, only ASD males spent less time with the novel obje...Continue Reading

Citations

Apr 21, 2020·Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine : ECAM·Ya-Nan ZhaoLin Pei
Feb 8, 2021·Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews·Carlijn Peerboom, Corette J Wierenga
Aug 24, 2021·Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience·Charlotte GustorffStefanie Endesfelder

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