Adolescent sleep shapes social novelty preference in mice

Sleep disturbances frequently occur in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, but the developmental role of sleep is largely unexplored, and a causal relationship between developmental sleep defects and behavioral consequences in adulthood remains elusive. Here, we show that in mice, sleep disruption (SD) in adolescence, but not in adulthood, causes long-lasting impairment in social novelty preference. Furthermore, adolescent SD alters the activation and release patterns of dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) in response to social novelty. This developmental sleep function is mediated by balanced VTA activity during adolescence; chemogenetic excitation mimics, whereas silencing rescues, the social deficits of adolescent SD. Finally, we show that in Shank3-mutant mice, improving sleep or rectifying VTA activity during adolescence ameliorates adult social deficits. Together, our results identify a critical role of sleep and dopaminergic activity in the development of social interaction behavior.