The nature of the disease

ASD is difficult to treat due to the complexity and heterogeneous nature. In addition, the insufficient reliable medical testing for ASD diagnosis often delays the treatments for children (CDC, 2020). Even though the diagnosis of ASD relies on the universal diagnostic criteria of the DSM-5, it is not always so easy as the disorder lies on a spectrum with varying severities. The inability to diagnose and treat ASD individuals is quite concerning since it affects approximately 1 in 66 children in Canada where the diagnosis is more prevalent in males than females. The spectrum nature of the disease results in a wide variety of behavioral and social deficits where different individuals would display different subsets of these symptoms. The most widely used ASD treatments focus on patient-based therapies where treatments are tailored towards the needs of the individual. Both behavioral management therapy and cognitive behavior therapy are known to be highly effective in reinforcing wanted and socially accepted behaviors (NIH, 2017). These treatments allow people with ASD to work with a therapist to pin-point their problems and slowly change their mindset and problematic behaviors. Other than patient-based therapies, drugs can be prescribed to alleviate the symptoms experienced by ASD patients, however, unlike the patient-based therapies, the effects of medication are only short term. Treatments as of now can only reduce the severity of the symptoms and no cure is available making this disorder hard to deal with.

The limitations of using mice models

Mice are a popular model organism among researchers who are studying neurological disorders as it was used by both the studies that were mentioned above. Mice are popular among researchers because they are highly accessible, cheap, small in size, low maintenance, and they also have a quick reproductive rate. In addition, studies have shown that some mice have a similar genome to humans (Harper, 2010). It is no doubt that mice models contributed a major role in drug and disease discovery as they expanded the opportunities for researchers to explore different types of experimental design that might have been otherwise unethical to do so. Despite all the advantages, human replication of studies based on mice models is often unethical and impossible to do. The use of mice models for ASD studies limits the ability to study all aspects of behavioral and social deficits since not all of these deficits can be exhibited in the mice models. It is also questionable to determine whether the observations and measurements made towards the behaviors of the mice fully reflect on the ASD symptoms due to the lack of a universal diagnostic criteria. Without a criteria, replication of this study will be difficult even with the use of mice models since researchers can interpret the behaviors exhibited by the mice differently. Last but not least, ASD patients often have trouble understanding gestures and emotions, however, these deficits cannot be exhibited and studied with mice models. Nonetheless, mice models are still amazing since they played a major role in advancing our medical discoveries. Some of the greatest studies wouldn’t have been discovered if it weren’t for the mouse models.