Mouse Models
Have I ever mentioned that “typically-developing” mice are disgusting? They’re always spending their time going around “anogenitally sniffing” each other. Horribly unhygienic.
Look, mouse models of autism have problems at the behavioural level. Just how are you going to equate the behaviour of this relatively simple creature with that of humans? I mean, humans have language, elaborate ways of nonverbally signalling our intentions, and even things like social institutions and societies. Mice have anogenital sniffing, which is apparently good for their social communication. I’m happy for the mice and their anogenital sniffing, I truly am, and I wish them all the happiness in the world as they occasionally anogenitally sniff each other, but is there seriously any sense in which we can find equivalence between human social behaviour and mouse social behaviour?
Just what are we trying to do with mouse models? If we ever had any thought of trying to compare mice to intellectually-able, verbal people with idiopathic autism, we should definitely toss that out the window. Studies of autistic people’s prosody suggest that there are subtle, unquantified differences in autistic people’s style and presentation that can somehow nevertheless be detected by other humans, even in the absence of any differences in the content of their speech (Grossman, 2015; Sasson et al., 2017). Try finding a mouse behaviour equivalent to that!
To be fair, I think people usually have the idea that studying mice might be more helpful with more (so-called) “severe” forms of autism, as it were. But here as well we quickly find that there are huge problems. These “severe” forms of autism are often closely related to things like language delays, but mice don’t have language. There’s also all sorts of problems with the existing mouse model literature using social behaviour assays.
While some people talk as though these problems can be overcome by using better behavioural assays, I’m pretty sure that looking at mouse behaviour and expecting it to be informative about complex human social behaviour is not going to work. Frankly, the suggestion that autistic or typically-developing people behave in ways comparable to mice is rather insulting to both autistic and typically-developing people.
[A/N: In response to a comment, I clarified that I do not mean to suggest that autistic people who feel a connection with animals are insulting their neurotype. I feel like those autistic people are elevating animals, which is different from the comparisons in research, which I think diminish autistic people. I sincerely apologize for the original remark.]
I’m no mouse model expert, but surely if there is any use for mouse models, it would involve molecular and biological outcomes, not behavioural assays?
Does everyone agree? Does anyone disagree? Share your thoughts in a comment!
References
Grossman, R. B. (2015). Judgments of social awkwardness from brief exposure to children with and without high-functioning autism. Autism, 19(5), 580–587. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361314536937
Sasson, N. J., Faso, D. J., Nugent, J., Lovell, S., Kennedy, D. P., & Grossman, R. B. (2017). Neurotypical peers are less willing to interact with those with autism based on thin slice judgments. Scientific Reports, 7, 40700. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep40700
4 thoughts on “Mouse Models”
I think (psychology major as an undergraduate and some of my coursework was behavior/animal focused and some of my colleagues have worked with animal models) that there are come common core emotions and behaviors that exist across most animals (including humans) and that this can be supported by neuroimaging, brain chemistry, and in some cases fMRI. I think extrapolating too far extends into anthropromorphism (e.g. assuming mice get embarrassed if other mice see them with shaved fur) but even the theory of evolution supports the idea that there is overlap among most species in behavior and cognition. For instance studies with mice or fish can look at basic social behaviors such fear responses, addiction, habituation, social avoidance etc. However it would be difficult to examine complex language or human-specific behaviors (e.g. effect of autism diagnosis on syntax development) with non-human animals. My own worldview lies somewhat in between Skinner and the radical behaviorism (i.e. animals have no thought and simply respond with reflexes in response to stimulus) and the idea that non-human animals are clones of humans in every aspect. However, I do think that tests of basic emotions and behaviors (with comparative neuroanatomy and brain chemistry) can help explain some human behavior, including in autism research. In some cases, it would not be ethical to conduct studies on humans so animals are the best model researchers can use. For instance testing a drug on fish or mice at an early stage may be allowed but not testing it on humans until some safety profile has been established. As an autisitic self-advocate, I have personally related to some pieces which compare autistic thinking to some animals (e.g. All Cat’s Have Asperger Syndrome and Animals in Translation) but I know that some individuals on the spectrum do not like that comparison/find it offensive so I try and be respectful when speaking of this worldview even though I find it useful for my own thought processes and feel I have a special connection to my companion animals that I don’t have with other humans.
Thanks very much for your comment! I don’t think we’ve ever spoken before, but I appreciated your 2012 study on sexuality. You definitely broke some important ground there.
I also appreciate your comment on the autistic connection to animal thinking. I now realize I should have clarified my thoughts when I suggested the comparison was insulting. I know Temple Grandin was originally thinking of calling Thinking in Pictures “A Cow’s Eye View” or something similar, and I personally know many people who feel special connections with cats or dogs, whether they are therapy animals or otherwise. Dawn Prince-Hughes has some fascinating passages in her book where she writes about how she found it easier to understand human social behaviour by learning from gorillas. (I think her comments there are very telling on the difficulty of learning social skills by observing fast-paced interactions in the moment, but I digress.)
When I made the comment about how I found the comparison “insulting,” I think I had in mind a distinction between the many, many autistic people like you who do feel special connections with animals and the ivory-tower researchers who write dry academic papers that seem to reduce autistic people to a set of behaviours. The autistic adults’ remarks seem to be about elevating nonhuman animals, which is great, whereas I feel that the mouse model research diminishes autistic people, which I do have a problem with. So I see a distinction there.
However, I realize I didn’t say any of that in the post, and your comment definitely made me realize that failing to do so was quite offensive to the many autistic people who have made comparisons between their thinking and that of animals. I certainly did not intend to suggest that autistic people who feel that special connection with animals are somehow insulting their own neurotype. So I deeply and sincerely apologize for that.
As for the mouse models themselves, I know there is some room for debate on this topic. My worry with the existing assays is that they aren’t good enough, and I’m not sure that the relationship between human and mouse behaviour is close enough to allow for much improvement, so I worry that researchers have a lot of flexibility to “prove” anything with their models.
Also, I didn’t mention testing for safety, but only because it seems like most of the drugs being tried in autism are existing medications that people are already using to treat different conditions besides autism. I’m definitely in favour of testing for safety, though!
This is a naive question, but how did mouse models become so widely used in autism research anyway? Is it just because mice have traditionally been used in all sorts of psychology experiments, and their use in autism research grew out of that?
That is actually an excellent question! Mice really aren’t the obvious choice of model for a complex neurotype like autism, that is bound up in things like human social behaviour, and in fact, there have been calls for the use of other animals instead of mice. Monkeys, for example. However, as you say, there’s a long tradition of using mice in psychology research, and once you start getting in the habit of doing one thing, it’s easier to keep doing it and not have to create new techniques and practices, not to mention the “models” themselves. So I think your explanation is right.