Autism Rat Models Consortium — Request for Applications

Grants awarded through this request for applications (RFA) were intended to recharge and extend a consortium of researchers using rats as an experimental system to advance understanding of the behavioral and circuit neuroscience mechanisms underlying autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD). SFARI launched the Autism Rat Models Consortium (ARC) in 2022 with a group of researchers funded through this original RFA. These researchers are using rats generated with SFARI funding that carry mutations in high-confidence genes that in humans significantly increase the likelihood of developing autism and related NDD. These genes include FMR1, ARID1B, CHD8, CNTNAP2, DYRK1A, NRXN1, SCN2A and GRIN2B, and all lines are on the Long-Evans outbred genetic background. As part of the consortium, these same rat models are being evaluated through a comprehensive behavioral phenotyping pipeline established by the Simons Initiative for the Developing Brain (SIDB). Access to these models, as well the resulting data from the SIDB pipeline, are available to any qualified researcher. ARC members have studied the behavior and neurophysiology underlying social interaction, sensory processing, navigation and learning and memory in these models, finding similarities across genes for some phenotypes as well as an interesting array of differences both across lines and within individuals of the same lines.