Noboru Hiroi – New article in the Newsroom!
Congratulations to Noboru Hiroi, on this article in the “Newsroom” concerning the relationship between specific mouse vocalizations and association with social abnormalities!
Mouse pups’ cries give clues about autism spectrum disorder
One-fifth of babies who inherit a genetic variant located on chromosome 16 will develop autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by age 3. The variant is called 16p11.2 deletion.
Noboru Hiroi, PhD, of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (also referred to as UT Health San Antonio), is studying mice that have this deletion. The team, which includes colleagues from Japan, Ireland and the U.S., is harnessing the power of machine learning to understand which vocalizations of the newborn mouse pups are most predictive of social abnormalities one month later when the pups reach puberty.
“It is essential to identify those very early signs that can predict what is to come, because if we can translate what we discover in mouse pups to human infants and apply therapeutic options earlier, their outcome will be better,” Dr. Hiroi said.
Mice are studied because of the short timeline of their development. The same research in human babies, which is just beginning, will take two to three years of follow-up.