{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,15]],"date-time":"2026-05-15T16:57:49Z","timestamp":1778864269054,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":44,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,11]],"date-time":"2021-11-11T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1636588800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Behav. Neurosci."],"abstract":"<jats:p>Faces convey a great amount of socially relevant information related to emotional and mental states, identity and intention. Processing of face information is a key mechanism for social and cognitive development, such that newborn babies are already tuned to recognize and orient to faces and simple schematic face-like patterns since the first hours of life. Similar to neonates, also non-human primates and domestic chicks have been shown to express orienting responses to faces and schematic face-like patterns. More importantly, existing studies have hypothesized that early disturbances of these mechanisms represent one of the earliest biomarker of social deficits in autism spectrum disorders (ASD). We used VPA exposure to induce neurodevelopmental changes associated with ASD in domestic chicks and tested whether VPA could impact the expression of the animals\u2019 approach responses to schematic face-like stimuli. We found that VPA impairs the chicks\u2019 preference responses to these social stimuli. Based on the results shown here and on previous studies, we propose the domestic chick as animal model to investigate the biological mechanisms underlying face processing deficits in ASD.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fnbeh.2021.733140","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,11]],"date-time":"2021-11-11T05:25:16Z","timestamp":1636608316000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":16,"title":["Spontaneous Visual Preference for Face-Like Stimuli Is Impaired in Newly-Hatched Domestic Chicks Exposed to Valproic Acid During Embryogenesis"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"15","author":[{"given":"Alice","family":"Adiletta","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Samantha","family":"Pedrana","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Orsola","family":"Rosa-Salva","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Paola","family":"Sgad\u00f2","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,11,11]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"146","DOI":"10.4161\/chan.24380","article-title":"Voltage-gated sodium channels: pharmaceutical targets via anticonvulsants to treat epileptic syndromes.","volume":"7","author":"Abdelsayed","year":"2013","journal-title":"Channels"},{"key":"B2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1779","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4614-4788-7_108","article-title":"Prenatal exposure to valproate in animals and autism","author":"Bambini-Junior","year":"2014","journal-title":"Comprehensive Guide to Autism"},{"key":"B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1309","DOI":"10.1017\/S1461145712001216","article-title":"Impairment of cortical GABAergic synaptic transmission in an environmental rat model of autism.","volume":"16","author":"Banerjee","year":"2013","journal-title":"Int. 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