Validity of mouse models in autism research

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I have seen many headlines about autism research studies using mouse models.

These are mice that have been bred to exhibit autism-like symptoms.

Then experiments are run, like giving the mice benzodiazepines to change their GABA balances.

I am having a hard time with this approach conceptually.

If we don't understand the causes of autism and cannot say "Autism is a GABA imbalance" then how can this research be linked to autism with any confidence. The mice don't have autism, they have autism-like behavior because they were bred for that--but does that mean the behavior has the same underlying mechanisms? The same developmental pathways?

This seems like flailing in the dark and hoping that the occasional impact with objects creates a coherent picture of the surrounding environment. I wish it was a more focused program--echolocation instead of flailing blindly about. It just seems like a sketchy process.

Am I wrong in having this basic distrust of the mouse model approach?

EDITED TO ADD:
There is a piece from 2011 at SFARI about this.

In the terms described in this piece, I think the thing that bothers me is that these models seem to have some degree of face validity, but little or no construct validity. It seems like a thin basis for drawing inferences about autism.

As you, most definitely, know, mice are used in much medical research.

I don't believe it's applicable to autism, though--the mouse brain and the human brain are radically different. I don't believe mice even have a "prefontal cortex." I'll have to look this up--but I'm sure they don't have many other brain regions found in humans which have been found to be significant within an autism context.

Of Mice and Men - Genetic research and its importance in autism

I don't like linking to a blog but it's by John Elder Robison ... I wish he'd used citations. I can track down some of the information to back it up but once I start fact checking and reading through scientific journals my whole day will be gone ... and when I post links to scientific studies people typically don't read them anyway.

How's your kid doing?

Who, me? He's OK. He's repeating kindergarten, not for academic reasons but for social delays/behavioral issues. He does the first half of his day in a mainstream class with an aide and the second half of his day in a class with other special needs children. He gets notes home almost everyday that he's been misbehaving in some way or another mostly in his mainstream class though. He's very smart when he's paying attention, it's very difficult to keep his attention on something he's not interested in doing though.

I talked to some mouse model researchers about their mouse models of autism, and some said that they had developed many mouse models, but were unsure that any of them modeled autism. Mouse models is a good way to study the human brain in ways that we can't with humans, but I have thought for awhile that they are a lesser approach for studying autism.

I totally agree with you. I was just joking with my husband the other night, saying, "What do they do, give the mice tests for autism? That's impossible. They must choose mice that sit in the corner and don't make eye contact." Which, of course, proves nothing, as my husband pointed out, because they could be exhibiting the behavior for other reasons. Autistic mice, yeah right. I've been wondering when someone would finally point this out.

I think mice models may help with some very specific cases of autism with similar induced symptoms making it more severe, but in general they mean nothing as the mice aren't actually autistic, they just have induced symptoms. They would need mice which are genetically autistic, and mice can't even really be autistic as mice already are sorta autistic, by that I mean they don't have brains wired to socialize to the degree humans are. I wonder is autism is actually the default state of the mind, and neurotypical functioning is just an extra layer on top.

Washi: the reason why I asked about your kid:

When I started on WrongPlanet, I read through the "other than Asperger's thread"--within which you were a prominent contributor.

I always like to know how people are progressing in life.

Thanks. I still lurk but haven't posted much in a long time. I have/had a lot of issues come up between then and now but every time I think I'm going to bring one of them up I withdraw and ultimately decide I don't want to talk about it.