Lycopene improves social disorder and reduces hippocampal inflammation in BTBR mice

Objective To investigate the effects of lycopene (Lyc) on hippocampal inflammation, social deficits and repetitive stereotyped behaviors in BTBR T+ Itpr3tf/J autistic mice (BTBR, a mouse strain showing lower sociability as a model for autism spectrum disorder). Methods Adult male C57BL/6J (C57) and BTBR mice aged 7-8 weeks were randomly divided into (n=8): C57+Veh group, C57+Lyc group, BTBR+Veh group and BTBR+Lyc group. The mice from the C57+Lyc group and BTBR+Lyc group were given 20 mg/kg Lyc by gavage once a day for 7 d, and those of the C57+Veh group and BTBR+Veh mice were given equal volume of corn oil. Then three-chamber social test, male-female reciprocal social interactions, self-grooming, marble buying, open field test, object recognition test, nest building, and Y-maze test were conducted in these mice. Immediately after the behavioral tests, the mice were sacrificed and their brain samples were harvested for RT-qPCR and Western blotting. Results Behavioral results showed that in the three-chamber so