Selected Grantee Publications

Heritability of Social Behavioral Phenotypes and Preliminary Associations with Autism Spectrum Disorder Risk Genes in Rhesus Macaques: A Whole Exome Sequencing Study

Gunter et al., Autism Research. 2022.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/aur.2675

Investigators quantified individual variation in social interactions among juvenile rhesus macaques of both sexes using both a standard macaque ethogram (a catalogue of animal behavior over time) and a macaque-relevant modification of the human Social Responsiveness Scale to study genetic influences on key aspects of social behavior and interactions. The analyses demonstrate that various aspects of juvenile social behavior exhibit significant genetic heritability, with quantitative genetic effects similar to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in human children. The significant genetic and sequencing data may be used to examine potential genetic associations with human ASD. Supported by ORIP (P51OD011132), NHGRI and NIMH.