Dawson, Matt S;
Gordon-Fleet, Kevin;
Yan, Lingxin;
Tardos, Vera;
He, Huanying;
Mui, Kwong;
Nawani, Smriti;
... Drescher, Uwe; + view all
(2023)
Sexual dimorphism in the social behaviour of Cntnap2-null mice correlates with disrupted synaptic connectivity and increased microglial activity in the anterior cingulate cortex.
Communications Biology
, 6
, Article 846. 10.1038/s42003-023-05215-0.
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Abstract
A biological understanding of the apparent sex bias in autism is lacking. Here we have identified Cntnap2 KO mice as a model system to help better understand this dimorphism. Using this model, we observed social deficits in juvenile male KO mice only. These male-specific social deficits correlated with reduced spine densities of Layer 2/3 and Layer 5 pyramidal neurons in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex, a forebrain region prominently associated with the control of social behaviour. Furthermore, in male KO mice, microglia showed an increased activated morphology and phagocytosis of synaptic structures compared to WT mice, whereas no differences were seen in female KO and WT mice. Our data suggest that sexually dimorphic microglial activity may be involved in the aetiology of ASD, disrupting the development of neural circuits that control social behaviour by overpruning synapses at a developmentally critical period.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Sexual dimorphism in the social behaviour of Cntnap2-null mice correlates with disrupted synaptic connectivity and increased microglial activity in the anterior cingulate cortex |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s42003-023-05215-0 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05215-0 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Surgery and Interventional Sci > Department of Targeted Intervention |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10181273 |
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