Persistent cortical excitatory neuron dysregulation in adultChd8haploinsufficient mice

CHD8mutations cause autism spectrum disorder, cognitive deficits, and macrocephaly.Chd8^+/-mouse models exhibit macrocephaly and transcriptional pathology, with inconsistent findings regarding neurogenesis, neuron function, and behavior. Via stereology and single nuclei transcriptomics (snRNA-seq), we found increasedChd8^+/-cortical volume was not explained by increase in neuron number. Differential expression (DE) was present across cortical cell types, with excitatory neurons exhibiting high DE burden and shared and subclass-specific DE signatures. Bulk RNA-seq DE of constitutiveChd8^+/-and conditionalCamk2a-Cre Chd8^+/-mice identified shared transcriptional pathology. DE in synaptosomal versus nuclear mRNA identified overlapping DEGs, but also significant differences and exaggerated synaptosomal changes. Building on DE findings implicating glutamatergic neurons, we foundChd8^+/-mice exhibited altered excitatory neuron spine density and dynamics, decreased GCaMP activity correlation, and sleep perturbation. Thus,Chd8haploinsufficiency causes lasting excitatory neuron dysfunction, perturbs RNA regulation beyond transcription, and impacts neuronal properties, cortical microcircuits, and behavior.