Assessing behavioural and cognitive domains of autism spectrum disorders in rodents: current status and future perspectives

The establishment of robust and replicable behavioural
testing paradigms with translational value for psychiatric
diseases is a major step forward in developing and testing
etiology-directed treatment for these complex disorders.
Based on the existing literature, we have generated an inventory
of applied rodent behavioural testing paradigms relevant
to autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This inventory focused
on previously used paradigms that assess behavioural domains
that are affected in ASD, such as social interaction,
social communication, repetitive behaviours and behavioural
inflexibility, cognition as well as anxiety behaviour. A wide
range of behavioural testing paradigms for rodents were identified.
However, the level of face and construct validity is
highly variable. The predictive validity of these paradigms is
unknown, as etiology-directed treatments for ASD are currently
not on the market. To optimise these studies, future
efforts should address aspects of reproducibility and take into
account data about the neurodevelopmental underpinnings
and trajectory of ASD. In addition, with the increasing knowledge
of processes underlying ASD, such as sensory information
processes and synaptic plasticity, phenotyping efforts
should includemulti-level automated analysis of, for example, representative task-related behavioural and electrophysiological
read-outs.