title: Letting a typical mouse judge whether mouse social interactions are atypical.
abstract: Diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) requires a qualitative assessment of social aptitude: one person judging whether another person interacts in a "typical" way. We hypothesized that mice could be used to make a similar judgment if they prefer "typical" over "atypical" social interactions with mouse models relevant to ASD. We used wild-type C57BL/6 (B6) mice as "judges" and evaluated their preference for a chamber containing a "typical" (B6 or 129S6) or an "atypical" mouse. For our atypical mouse stimuli, we chose two inbred strains with well-documented social phenotypes (BTBR and BALB/c), as well a mutant line with abnormal social behavior and seizures (Gabrb3 +/-). Overall, we observed a stimulus by time interaction (P < 0.0001), with B6 mice preferring the typical mouse chamber during the last 10 min of the 30-min test. For two of the individual stimulus pairings, we observed a similar chamber by time interaction (BALB/c vs. 129S6, P = 0.0007; Gabrb3 +/- vs. 129S6, P = 0.033). For the third stimulus pairing, we found a trend for preference of the typical mouse across time (BTBR vs. B6, P = 0.051). We repeated the experiments using 129S6 mice as judges and found a significant overall interaction (P = 0.034), but only one stimulus pairing reached significance on its own (BALB/c vs. 129S6, P = 0.0021). These data suggest that a characteristic pattern of exploration in B6 mice can distinguish some socially atypical animals from controls.
authors: Department of Psychiatry, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA.
authors: Charisma R
authors: CR
authors: Shah
authors: Carl Gunnar
authors: CG
authors: Forsberg
authors: Jing-Qiong
authors: JQ
authors: Kang
authors: Jeremy
authors: J
authors: Veenstra-VanderWeele
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics / Q000523:psychology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains; D008817:Mice, Mutant Strains; D011963:Receptors, GABA-A / Q000235:genetics; D012919:Social Behavior
chemical_list: C546270:Gabrb3 protein, mouse; D011963:Receptors, GABA-A