Authors :
Presenting Author: Taylor Bradish, MS – Baylor University
Gautham Chelliah, BS – Baylor University
Chloe Lau, -- – Baylor University
Colton Kelley, -- – Baylor University
Josh Thayil, -- – Baylor University
Joaquin Lugo, -- – Baylor University
Katherine Blandin, M.A. – Baylor University
David Narvaiz, PhD – Baylor University
Joaquin lugo, PhD – Baylor University
Rationale:
Epilepsy is characterized by the predisposition to have recurrent seizures that can be a result of various etiologies both genetic and otherwise. The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway is associated with regulating cell growth, metabolism, and migration. Dysregulation of the mTOR pathway has been linked to both neurodevelopmental disorders and epilepsy. It has been uncovered that a deletion or mutation of the phosphate and tensin homolog (PTEN) on chromosome ten is a suppressor of the mTOR pathway and can result in epilepsy. Seizures in early development have been found to result in autistic-like behavioral deficits, such as communication deficits. In the present study, we aimed to characterize the communication alterations found in the neuronal subset-specific deletion of PTEN across critical points of early development.
Methods:
We used a neuronal subset-specific PTEN (NS-PTEN) mouse model to investigate the communication differences among wildtype (WT), heterozygous (HT), and knockout (KO) genotypes in males and females. The NS-PTEN KO mouse is a well-characterized mouse model of epilepsy. Ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) were used to examine these differences, as they have shown to be an accurate tool to assess communication in mice. Mouse pups generally vocalize during their first 2 weeks of life and are emitted to elicit a retrieval response from the dam. We chose to examine postnatal days (PD) 10 and 12, as this represents a time with a high vulnerability to seizures. We evaluated differences of genotype on call types and aspects of total calls.Results:
An analysis of the distribution of call types found that PD10 female KO had more complex, composite, and frequency steps calls, and less chevron and upward calls than at PD12 (p < .05). Male PD10 KO were found to have more chevron, complex, frequency step, and 2-component calls, and less short and upward calls than at PD12 (p < .05). We also found that HT pups emitted fewer single calls and had a higher mean call duration at PD10 than PD12 (p < .05). On PD10, HT pups also had a longer call duration than both KO and WT pups. Additionally, KO pups had a higher principle frequency at PD12 than PD10 (p < .05), but we found no other significant age and genotype interaction differences in USV spectral properties (i.e., latency, power, total call duration, total calls).