Autistic mice show skills similar to human cases

Published on Friday 7 September 2007 00:47

MUTANT mice with an autism gene display striking learning skills mirroring those seen in human "savants", new research shows.

The main abnormality seen in the genetically engineered mice was a poor ability to interact socially, a hallmark of aut-ism disorders.

But this was coupled with significantly enhanced spatial learning and memory skills. The mutants were better able than normal mice to learn and remember the location of a submerged platform.

The mice produced by scientists at Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, in the United States, have a mutant version of a gene called neuroligin-3. The same variant is found in some humans with classical autism and Asperger syndrome, a particular autistic disorder.

Neuroligin-3 produces a protein involved in the junction points that let nerve cells to "talk" to each other.

Autism in humans has also produced individuals with unusual memory gifts. So-called "savants" have performed astonishing feats of drawing from memory, the playing of intricate classical music after one listening, and complex maths calculations at speed.

Dr Thomas Sudhof, who led the research published in the online version of Science, said the "remarkable" mice offered a new tool for understanding autism.