Application of new methods and technologies in mice models of autism research

Autism Spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder affecting around 2 % of the world's population. The underlying pathology is still unknown, but it seems that this disorder might be caused by a complex combination of genetic, epigenetic and environmental factors. ASD individuals suffer not only from repetitive behavior, abnormal social behavior and impaired communication but also from many comorbid disorders. ASD mouse models offer a deeper insight into the pathology of ASD, possibly leading to the development of treatments, or even a cure. Since there are over a thousand risk-genes for ASD, and therefore many ASD mouse models, there is an increased pressure to develop new, effective, and more automatized behavioral assays. Two examples of this would be Intellicage and Digitally Ventilated Cage (DVC), where an explicit advantage to these systems is that they can both function as a home cage. Intellicage is a fully-automized home cage designed for the high-throughput and long-term investigation of spontaneous behavior and cognitive abilities of mice, and DVC, a standard IVC cage continuously measuring a mouse's activity. These may become useful tools not only for animal models of Autism Spectrum Disorder, but all studies involving behavioral assays