SHANK3 and autism: A mouse model for PMDS reflecting autistic traits seen in human patients has been published (Bozdagi et al., 2010) and several homozygous Shank3 mutant animals were reported to display autism-like phenotypes including impaired social behavior and ultrasonic vocalizations, repetitive behavior, anxiety and learning and memory problems (Peça et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2011; Schmeisser et al., 2012).