Gabby Boadi
The goal of my research is to investigate the connection between autoimmune diseases and autism by investigating autistic like phenotypes in the autoimmune compromise animal model NZB/BINJ (NZB) mice.
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Abstract:
Abstract:
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopment disorder that has been studied for years, and scientists are still trying to understand what the cause could be. One hypothesis is the possible link between autoimmune diseases such as lupus and autism. For this research, 12 and 3-week-old mice with a disease similar to lupus (NZB) were used as a model for autoimmune diseases. Wild-type mice (C57) were used as a control group. The research question proposed is: Do autoimmune diseases contribute to autistic-like behaviors? The hypothesis was that the NZB/BINJ (NZB) mice would display autistic-like behaviors across ages. To decide which behaviors to look at, we investigated common behaviors, such as repetitive behaviors, motor deficits, and social deficits associated with ASD. Mice undergoing the beam test account for motor deficits, the partition test accounts for social deficits, and the marble test accounts for repetitive behaviors. There were significant differences in the beam and marble tests but no significant differences in the partition tests. For future work, the behavior of the mice in an open field and the speed of the mice are being looked at to see if there are any disparities there.
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