The Shank2-deficient mouse model, which mimics a microdeletion found in human patients, exhibits impaired plasticity at Schaffer collateral-CA1 pyramidal cell synapses and spatial learning in the Morris water maze task as well as autism-related behavioral phenotypes (Won et al., 2012), making this gene one of the most compelling mechanistic targets for this study. Here, SHANK2 is linked to autism.