Emotional contagion in Fmr1 knockout mice, a model of Fragile X Syndrome : PhD thesis

Nikołajew, Tomasz

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Emotional contagion in Fmr1 knockout mice, a model of Fragile X Syndrome : PhD thesis

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Title: Emotional contagion in Fmr1 knockout mice, a model of Fragile X Syndrome : PhD thesis

Abstract:

Lately, we can observe a steady increase in the number of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnoses. The ASD population is characterised with deficits in social interactions and communication, as well as the presence of stereotyped behavior. Lack of social skills often manifests itself through empathy impairment. Until recently, empathy was thought to occur only in humans, but a growing body of research indicates that emotional contagion - the simplest form of empathy, is widely found in nature, including in primates, marine mammals, birds and rodents. Despite the importance of the phenomenon, there is still little data on the neuronal basis of sharing emotions. Aim of my PhD project was to assess the empathic abilities and the activity pattern within the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex of Fmr1KO(FVB) mice (both males and females) - commonly used mouse model of ASD. To study this phenomenon, I employed the Remote Transfer of Fear paradigm, in which mice are housed in pairs for three weeks, one labelled an Observer, and the other a Demonstrator. In the test session, the Demonstrator is subjected to aversive stimuli outside of the home cage, while the Observer remains there undisturbed. Then, the Demonstrator returns to the home cage, where it can freely interact with the Observer and the first nine minutes of interactions are recorded. The activity of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex was assessed using immunohistochemistry against c-Fos protein, a standard neuronal novelty marker. Behavior was measured by using software utilizing machine learning, for automatic pose estimation (DeepLabCut) and automatic classification and recognition of animal behavior patterns (simBA). Behavioral and c-Fos activation pattern results indicated the existence of deficits in emotional contagion in Fmr1KO(FVB) mice. Furthermore, data obtained during this study points to differences in response to stressed partner between females and males, both on behavioral and c-Fos levels. The behavior recognition model created during this study made it possible to study behavior with great accuracy, and after short re-training, can be successfully used in another study.