Oxytocin administration modulates the complex type of ultrasonic vocalisation of mice pups prenatally exposed to valproic acid

Abstract

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by communication disability with no curative treatment. Maternal separation-induced ultrasonic vocalisation (USV) was widely used to assess communication disability between pups and dams. Particularly, USV calls in many genetically modified ASD model mice were altered. Previously, we demonstrated that mice pups exposed to valproic acid in utero (VPA pups) showed decreased number of USV calls on postnatal day 11 and were rescued by subcutaneous injection of oxytocin. However, the qualitative change of USV calls by oxytocin has not been evaluated in VPA pups. In the present study, we examined the duration of oxytocin effect and analysed the altered pattern of USV calls using VPA pups. The oxytocin administration increased the total number of USV calls and the effect persisted up to 120 min in VPA pups. The pattern analysis revealed that the increase in the number of complex calls also persisted up to 120 min. These results suggested that oxytocin had a prolonged effect on USV calls, mainly on complex calls, in VPA pup, showing that oxytocin could recover their social modality to respond to maternal separation.