J. Thomas Curtis

Biography

J.Thomas Curtis is an Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences and past worked as Research Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences and Assistant Scholar Scientist in Neuroscience at Florida State University. Associate Faculty in Neuroscience at Florida State University and also Post-doctoral Fellow in Neuroscience, Florida State University. Post-doctoral Researcher, Program in Neuroscience, Florida State University. He earned his PhD in Biology University of Missouri, Columbia , MS in Biology University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, BS in Biology Slippery Rock University.

Research Interest

For the past decade my research has focused on the social behavior of prairie voles. This species is among the few mammalian species that, like humans, form long-term bonds between the male and the female that comprise a mated pair. My collaborators and I have found that the brain processes that underlie pair-bond formation also are involved in substance abuse, and surprisingly, may play a critical role in the development and expression of autism. When prairie voles form pair-bonds, their brains are changed, and, as a result, when confronted with an unfamiliar individual, they exhibit aversive responses rather than the affiliative response seen in non-pair-bonded voles. In other words, these animals respond negatively to a novel social interaction, and display a social aversion akin to that seen in autistic children. In a seemingly unrelated line of research, one of my colleagues has shown that exposure to metals can change the brain in ways that, in voles, might produce the changes in social behavior that follow pair-bonding – an aversive response to social novelty. We have combined the metals exposure and prairie voles to produce an excellent animal model in which to study environmental triggers of autism. Using this model, we have produced in an animal model, two of the core characteristics of autism – social aversion and a bias toward males. When voles are given a choice between an empty cage and a cage containing another vole, metals-treated male voles avoid tend to avoid social contact. Importantly, the changes in social behavior do not occur in females. Further, we have been able to link the changes in behavior to a specific brain region and neurotransmitter system. Metals treatment also alters responses to amphetamine, again, only in males, implicating the mesolimbic dopamine system in the response to metals exposure. We now are expanding this model to take into account other aspects of autism. For example, autism is a childhood-onset disorder and thus, to be of maximum value, we will need to model perinatal influences on subsequent social behavior. In perhaps the most exciting result to date, it appears that perinatal exposure to metals produces the same male-biased changes in social behavior seen in other metals-treated voles – despite the fact that pups do not receive further metals exposure during the weeks between weaning and behavioral testing.