![Insights into Autism Spectrum Disorder]()
Noboru Hiroi, Ph.D., has been awarded a five-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders to investigate the interplay among genes, early social communication and neonatal maternal care in determining the severity of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Working with a genetic mouse model of ASD, Dr. Hiroi’s lab has observed that newborn mice display an unusual vocalization or “call,” to communicate with their mothers and that this abnormal call reduces the level of maternal care that newborns receive. The researchers will study whether abnormal newborn-to-mother vocalization is caused by ASD-related gene variants and whether this early experience of social communication gone awry worsens ASD-like behaviors through the epigenetic modification of these gene variants. Dr. Hiroi is professor in the Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience and of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. (1R01DC015776-01A1)
Posted on: Wednesday, September 13, 2017