ABSTRACT
In addition to the development of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) subsequent to exposure to drugs such as valproic acid (VPA), maternal exposure to infection is also associated with a high risk of ASD in the offspring. Relevant to the connection between exposure to VPA and development of ASD is the long recognized co-occurrence of ASD and epilepsies and the increasing recognition of clinical overlap in patients presenting with epilepsies and ASD. At the cellular level, several neuronal losses have been noted in these VPA-induced ASD rodent models: loss of Nissl positive neurons in the middle and lower layers of the prefrontal cortex and in the lower layers of the somatosensory cortex. The availability of the VPA rodent model of ASD, along with other models, greatly facilitates systematic investigation of the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying ASD.
