Mice, neuroscience and the debate around ‘curing’ autism

In today’s The Big Story podcast, one of the tools scientists have historically used in autism research has been lab mice, genetically engineered to display similar behavioural characteristics as some humans with autism. But the value of those experiments has become the subject of fierce debate amongst neuroscientists.

Celia Ford is the Future Perfect fellow at Vox. “Anything that’s really defined by human behaviour or a subjective human experience, [it] gets a little bit tricky to figure out how to draw those parallels between humans and animals,” says Ford.

So how helpful have lab mice been in furthering our understanding of autism? Where should we be focusing our research efforts? And is searching for a “cure” the right approach here?