Uncovering developmental activity biomarkers underlying autism using functional imaging in mice

Signs of autism emerge as early as 6 to 12 months of age, but the average age of diagnosis in the United States is four years. Therefore, there is an essential need to understand developmental alterations in brain development in order to improve ASD diagnosis and potentially develop therapeutics targeting the early onset of symptoms associated with this condition.

Little is known about the generation of brain neural activity dynamics during neonate development. Preliminary studies from our group suggest that it’s possible to use ultrasound to image brain activity dynamics in intake and awake neonatal mice. The goal of this proposal is to probe mechanisms underlying the generation of brain activity dynamics during typical development and in genetic ASD mouse models (Fmr1 and Shank3B knock out mice). Findings from these studies are expected to provide a framework for uncovering functional biomarkers of brain activity maturation in typically developing and in ASD mouse models in future studies.