| | Principal Investigators
| Jacqueline N.
Crawley, Ph.D. |
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Dr.
Crawley is chief of the Laboratory
of Behavioral Neuroscience of the Intramural Research
Program, National Institute of Mental Health, National
Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She received a B.A. in Biology from the
University of Pennsylvania in 1971, and a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Maryland in 1976.
Postdoctoral research in neuropsychopharmacology was conducted at Yale University School of Medicine.
She is an Adjunct Professor at The University of North Carolina and at Georgetown University. She is the recipient of many honors and awards,
including President of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, Mathilde Solowey Lecture
Award in Neuroscience, Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute Preceptor Award, Society for Neuroscience Membership Committee Chairmanship
Award, Fleur Strand Summer Neuropeptide Conference Award, and International Behavioral Neuroscience Society Marjorie A. Myers Lifetime
Achievement Award. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Neuropeptides and serves on the editorial boards of ten scientific journals.
She is the author of the book What′s Wrong With My Mouse? Behavioral Phenotyping of
Transgenic and Knockout Mice. |
| Research Interests |
| Dr. Crawley’s laboratory generates new rodent behavioral tasks and applies emerging technologies to investigate genes regulating complex behavioral traits. Employing a comprehensive range of behavioral tests and control parameters, Dr. Crawley’s research team developed a three-tiered strategy for mouse behavioral phenotyping, that is now widely used by the international biomedical research community. Mutant mouse models of human genetic diseases, including autism, Alzheimer's, cognitive decline, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tay-Sachs, Sandhoff’s, Lowe syndrome, Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome, Fragile X syndrome, ataxia telangiectasia, epilepsy, and obesity have been characterized for behavioral phenotypes with conceptual analogies to human symptoms. To discover genes underlying autism, mouse behavioral assays with face validity to the diagnostic symptoms of autism are being developed, including social approach, reciprocal social interaction, juvenile play, auditory and olfactory communication, motor stereotypies, repetitive and perseverative behaviors, and resistance to change in routine. Applying this approach, an obscure inbred strain of mice, BTBR T+tf/J, was discovered to display social deficits, communication abnormalities, and repetitive self-grooming, relevant to the three core symptoms of autism. Transgenic and knockout mice with targeted mutations in various neurodevelopmental genes are currently being analyzed, to test hypotheses about specific genes responsible for autism spectrum disorders. Robust mouse behavioral phenotypes provide surrogate markers for evaluating the therapeutic efficacy of novel treatments for neuropsychiatric diseases.
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| Representative Selected Recent Publications: |
- McFarlane HG, Kusek GK, Yang M, Phoenix JL, Bolivar VJ, Crawley JN:
Autism-like behavioral phenotypes in BTBR T+tf/J mice.
Genes, Brain and Behavior, 152-163, 2008. (View PDF)
- Scattoni ML, McFarlane HG, Zhodzishsky V, Caldwell HK, Young WS, Ricceri L, Crawley JN:
Reduced ultrasonic vocalizations in vasopressin 1b knockout mice.
Behav Brain Res , 187: 371-378, 2008. (View PDF)
- Crawley JN:
Testing hypotheses about autism.
Science, 318: 56-57, 2007. (View PDF)
- Yang M, Zhodzishsky V, Crawley JN:
Social deficits in BTBR T+tf/J mice are unchanged by cross-fostering with C57BL/6J mothers.
Int J Devel Neurosci , 25: 515-521, 2007. (View PDF)
- Crawley JN :
Mouse behavioral assays relevant to the symptoms of autism,
Brain Pathology, 17: 448-459, 2007. (View PDF)
- Crawley JN,
What's Wrong With My Mouse? Behaviorial Phenotyping of Transgenic and Knockout Mice, Second Edition
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 2000.
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