PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Lingling Mai AU - Ryuichi Kimura AU - Hitoshi Inada AU - Kouta Kanno AU - Takeru Matsuda AU - Ryosuke O. Tachibana AU - Kaichi Yoshizaki AU - Fumiyasu Komaki AU - Noriko Osumi TI - Paternal aging causes atypical development of vocal communication in neonatal mice AID - 10.1101/738781 DP - 2019 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 738781 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/11/10/738781.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/11/10/738781.full AB - Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is one of the neurodevelopmental disorders and characterized with persistent impairments in social communication (including verbal and nonverbal communication) and repetitive behavior together with various comorbid symptoms. Epidemiological studies suggest a significant association between advanced paternal age and incidence of ASD in offspring, which has been modeled in rodents. However, how paternal aging makes an impact on the offspring’s early communicative behavior, especially at the individual level, has not been addressed. Here we systematically analyzed postnatal development of vocal communication of pups by measuring ultrasonic vocalization (USV) induced by maternal separation that is considered to correspond to baby’s cry, an earliest verbal communication in human. Maternal separation-induced USV of each offspring derived from young (3 months) or aged (>12 months) father was individually measured for 5 minutes at postnatal day 3 (P3), P6, P9, and P12. We classified USV syllables into twelve types according to Scattoni’s classification with minor modifications, and analyzed duration, maximum frequency, maximum amplitude and interval of each syllable. Compared between the two groups, the offspring derived from aged fathers emitted the syllables with less number, shorter duration, different syllable components and less diversity. From an individual perspective, offspring derived from young father showed a developmental convergence in vocal communication, while those from aged fathers exhibited atypical developmental patterns. Taken together, we showed for the first time a significant influence of paternal aging on early vocal development with qualitative and quantitative aspects in individual mice.