Mechanisms underlying microbial-mediated changes in social behavior in mouse models of Autism Spectrum Disorder
By M. Sgritta, Sean W. Dooling, Shelly A Buffington, E. Momin, Michael B. Francis, R. Britton, Mauro Costa-Mattioli. Neuron, 2018
714 citations recorded by the source corpus.
SUMMARY Currently, there are no medications that effectively treat the core symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We recently found that the bacterial species Lactobacillus (L.) reuteri reverses social deficits in maternal high-fat diet offspring. However, whether the effect of L. reuteri on social behavior is generalizable to other ASD models and its mechanism(s) of action remain unknown. Here, we found that treatment with L. reuteri selectively rescues social deficits in genetic, environmental, and idiopathic ASD models. Interestingly, the effects of L. reuteri on social behavior are not mediated by restoring the composition of the host’s microbiome, which is altered in all of these ASD models. Instead, L. reuteri acts in a vagus nerve-dependent manner and rescues social interaction-induced synaptic plasticity in the ventral tegmental area of ASD mice, but not in oxytocin receptor-deficient mice. Collectively, treatment with L. reuteri emerges as promising non-invasive microbial-based avenue to combat ASD-related social dysfunction.
Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Pharmacy, Social Psychology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7c87563697ba7155d5b45141b0d43843a34325b2
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Citations in the corpus
- Human Gut Microbiota from Autism Spectrum Disorder Promote Behavioral Symptoms in Mice (2019, background): “Specific gut microbes have demonstrated therapeutic potential in animal models of ASD (Buffington et al., 2016; Hsiao et al., 2013; Sgritta et al., 2019; Tabouy et al., 2018).”
- Microbiota in health and diseases (2022, background): “Also, treatment with bacteria Lactobacillus reuteri in rats models was found to help mice with social deficits; such change was also restored in mice with vagotomy.(74) Recent studies also reported potential mechanisms of microbiota–ENS interaction.”