Vilidaite, G., Norcia, A.M., West, R.J.H. orcid.org/0000-0001-9873-2258 et al. (4 more authors) (2018) Autism sensory dysfunction in an evolutionarily conserved system. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 285 (1893). 20182255. ISSN 0962-8452
Abstract
There is increasing evidence for a strong genetic basis for autism, with many genetic models being developed in an attempt to replicate autistic symptoms in animals. However, current animal behaviour paradigms rarely match the social and cognitive behaviours exhibited by autistic individuals. Here, we instead assay another functional domain—sensory processing—known to be affected in autism to test a novel genetic autism model in Drosophila melanogaster. We show similar visual response alterations and a similar development trajectory in Nhe3 mutant flies (total n = 72) and in autistic human participants (total n = 154). We report a dissociation between first- and second-order electrophysiological visual responses to steady-state stimulation in adult mutant fruit flies that is strikingly similar to the response pattern in human adults with ASD as well as that of a large sample of neurotypical individuals with high numbers of autistic traits. We explain this as a genetically driven, selective signalling alteration in transient visual dynamics. In contrast to adults, autistic children show a decrease in the first-order response that is matched by the fruit fly model, suggesting that a compensatory change in processing occurs during development. Our results provide the first animal model of autism comprising a differential developmental phenotype in visual processing.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
Keywords: | autism; animal model; Drosophila; sensory processing; visual system |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > Department of Neuroscience (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 16 Jun 2022 09:31 |
Last Modified: | 16 Jun 2022 09:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The Royal Society |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rspb.2018.2255 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:188075 |
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