Cntnap2 loss drives striatal neuron hyperexcitability and behavioral inflexibility

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by two major diagnostic criteria – persistent deficits in social communication and interaction, and the presence of restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior (RRBs). Evidence from both human and animal model studies of ASD suggests that alteration of striatal circuits, which mediate motor learning, action selection, and habit formation, may contribute to the manifestation of RRBs. CNTNAP2 is a syndromic ASD risk gene, and loss of function of Cntnap2 in mice is associated with RRBs. How loss of Cntnap2 impacts striatal neuron function is largely unknown. In this study, we utilized Cntnap2^-/-^ mice to test whether altered striatal neuron activity contributes to aberrant motor behaviors relevant to ASD. We assessed excitatory, inhibitory, and intrinsic physiological function of the primary striatal cell type, SPNs, as well as a primary striatal interneuron class, PV-INs, using who..., Mice
All animal procedures were conducted by protocols approved by the University of California, Berkeley Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) and Office of Laboratory Animal Care (OLAC) (AUP-2016-04-8684-3). Cntnap2^-/-^ mice and littermate Cntnap2^+/+^ controls with the following alleles were utilized for each experiment.
Mice were group housed on a 12 h light/dark cycle (dark cycle 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM) and given ad libitum access to standard rodent chow and water. Both male and female animals were used for experimentation. The ages, sexes, and numbers of mice used for each experiment are indicated in the respective method details and figure legends. All mice used for experiments were heterozygous or hemizygous for the Drd1a-tdTomato, Thy1-ChR2-YFP, PV-Cre, Ai32, or Ai9 transgenes to avoid potential physiological or behavioral alterations.
Electrophysiology
Mice (P50-60) were briefly anesthetized with isoflurane and perfused transcardially with ice-cold ACSF (pH = 7.4) co..., # Data from: Cntnap2 loss drives striatal neuron hyperexcitability and behavioral inflexibility

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.5x69p8dh7](10.5061/dryad.5x69p8dh7)

## Description of the data and file structure

The following data repository contains the raw and pre-processed data for the experiments contained within the eLife publication \"*Cntnap2* loss drives striatal neuron hyperexcitability and behavioral inflexibility\". This includes patch-clamp slice electrophysiology data, confocal images, western blot gels, and behavior data

### Files and variables

**File: Figure_1.zip**

**Description:** Contains subfolders Electrophysiology data and Sample images and traces. Electrophysiology data includes the pre-processed electrophysiology data contained within Figure 1 (Corticostriatal excitability - oAPs, Corticostriatal Synapses - oEPSCs, Corticostriatal Synapses - AMPA:NMDA). Sample images and traces contains raw files for the sample images and sample traces seen in Figure 1. 

For all el...,