Abstracts

Rationale: Early-life status epilepticus (SE) can cause deficits in learning, memory, social behaviors, and communication. To better understand the acute impact of SE, ultrasonic vocalizations (USV) have been used to investigate communication deficits in mice. Our lab previously found that mice that received SE on postnatal day (PD) 10, have a decrease in the quantity and duration of USVs at PD12. In the current study, we investigated whether SE induced on PD7 had changes in USVs on PD9 to determine if different communication alterations occur at an earlier stage in neonatal development. We also included females in this study to examine sex differences.

Methods: In the present paradigm, we induced SE using an intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of 0.5% kainic acid (2.5 mg/kg), on C57BL/6 male and female mice at PD7. Age matched control male and female pups were given i.p. injections of 0.9% physiological saline. We then investigated the communicative behavior of these mice using USVs recorded on PD9. Two-way ANOVAs for sex [male, female] X treatment [control, SE] were run to assess changes in the total number of calls, total time vocalizing, peak call frequency, maximum call amplitude, and total number of each call individually based on a classification system using ten different categories.

Results: We did not find differences in the total number of USVs emitted, total time vocalizing, peak call frequency, and maximum call amplitude between the SE and control group. We did observe a main effect of treatment with an increase in the total number of chevron calls (p< 0.05) emitted by the SE group compared to the control. There was also a main effect of sex with upward and complex calls (p< 0.05) being emitted at a higher number by females over males.