Departments of Neurosurgery and Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Wu Tsai Institute, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520-8082.
Departments of Neurosurgery and Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Wu Tsai Institute, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520-8082
eNeuro. 2023 Aug 30;10(8). doi: 10.1523/ENEURO.0478-22.2023. Print 2023 Aug.
One of the most prevalent deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are sensitivities to sensory stimuli. Despite the prevalence of sensory deficits in autism, there are few paradigms capable of easily assessing sensory behaviors in ASD-like mouse models. We addressed this need by creating the Somatosensory Nose-poke Adapted Paradigm (SNAP), which consists of an elevated platform with 6 holes in the center, half of which are lined with sandpaper and half are smooth, requiring mice to use their whiskers to sense the texture. The SNAP paradigm assesses tactile sensory preferences as well as stereotypy, anxiety, and locomotion. We used two wild-type (neurotypical) mouse strains, C57BL/6J (C57) inbred and CD-1 outbred mice, and two ASD mouse models, BTBR (a model of idiopathic ASD) and mice (a model of syndromic ASD). We found that both ASD models produced more nose pokes into the rough condition than the smooth condition, suggesting an increased preference for complex tactile stimulation when compared with the neurotypical groups, wherein no differences were observed. Furthermore, we found increased stereotypy and time spent in the center, suggestive of decreased anxiety, only for BTBR mice compared with the other mouse strains. Overall, SNAP is an easy to implement task to assess the degree of preference for complex tactile stimulation in ASD mouse models that can be further modified to exclude possible confounding effects of novelty or anxiety on the sensory preferences.
自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 中最常见的缺陷之一是对感官刺激的敏感性。尽管自闭症中存在感官缺陷，但很少有范式能够轻易地评估 ASD 样小鼠模型中的感官行为。我们通过创建体感触须探洞适应范式 (SNAP) 来解决这一需求，该范式由一个带有 6 个中心孔的高架平台组成，其中一半孔内衬砂纸，另一半孔光滑，要求小鼠使用触须感知纹理。SNAP 范式评估触觉感官偏好以及刻板行为、焦虑和运动。我们使用了两种野生型（神经典型）小鼠品系，C57BL/6J（C57）近交系和 CD-1 远交系小鼠，以及两种 ASD 小鼠模型，BTBR（特发性 ASD 的模型）和 小鼠（综合征性 ASD 的模型）。我们发现，与光滑条件相比，两种 ASD 模型的小鼠在粗糙条件下进行的触须探洞次数更多，这表明与神经典型组相比，它们对复杂触觉刺激的偏好增加，而在神经典型组中则没有观察到差异。此外，我们发现 BTBR 小鼠的刻板行为和在中心区域的时间增加，提示焦虑程度降低，而其他两种小鼠品系则没有这种现象。总体而言，SNAP 是一种易于实施的任务，可以评估 ASD 小鼠模型对复杂触觉刺激的偏好程度，并且可以进一步修改该任务以排除新奇感或焦虑对感官偏好的可能影响。
