Review of approaches to modeling autism spectrum disorders in animals and studying the effectiveness of models in biomedical research (overview of the problem)

One of the current trends in studying the mechanisms of development of pathologies, the possibility of testing new pharmacological drugs, as well as the introduction of alternative methods of treating diseases is the use of laboratory animals, among which rodents are most often chosen. Autism spectrum disorders require studying not only the genetic and neurobiological mechanisms of their occurrence, but also the possibility of early diagnosis and alleviation of symptoms. The purpose of the presented work is to review the available methods for creating experimental models of autism spectrum disorders and modern tests necessary to assess the behavioral patterns of animals during biomedical research on autism. The search for literature sources was carried out in the PubMed and RSCI databases using the following dictionary queries: “autism spectrum disorders”, “rodent models”, “behavioural models”, “pharmacological models of autism spectrum disorders”, “autism”, “autism spectrum disorder” and etc. The search time horizon extended to 2016–2023. Modern approaches to modeling autism spectrum disorders in rodents are reviewed. A special place is occupied by the description of pharmacological and behavioral models. Much attention is paid to the comprehensive study of animal behavior to assess the severity of autism symptoms, namely impairments in social behavior, manifestations of stereotypical behavior and disorders of communication abilities.