Impaired prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle in schizophrenia

The Effects of Increased Central Serotonergic Activity on Prepulse Inhibition and Habituation of the Human Startle Response

“…Similar gating deficits have been found with a higher prevalence in relatives of schizophrenic patients as well as individuals with schizotypal personality disorder, thereby suggesting that the deficits are vulnerability markers already present before outright symptoms of schizophrenia are observed (Braff, 1993;Cadenhead et al, 2000Cadenhead et al, , 2002. In contrast to PPI, habituation shows less consistent results: some studies showing reduced habituation (eg Geyer and Braff, 1982;Parwani et al, 2000;Perry et al, 2002;Ludewig et al, 2003) and some failing to show habituation deficits in patients with schizophrenia (eg Braff et al, 1999;Kumari et al, 2000.…”

“…Habituation is a reduction over time of the amplitude of the ASR, seen after repeated presentation of identical startle eliciting pulses, which is not a result of sensory adaptation or muscle fatigue, and is considered a form of non-associative learning (Christoffersen, 1997). Patients with schizophrenia have frequently been found to show disrupted PPI, when compared with healthy controls (eg Braff et al, 1978Braff et al, , 1992Kumari et al, 2000;Parwani et al, 2000;Mackeprang et al, 2002).…”

Disruption of the Prepulse Inhibition of the Startle Reflex in Vasopressin V1b Receptor Knockout Mice: Reversal by Antipsychotic Drugs

“…Our results are in good agreement with clinical data obtained from schizophrenic patients. Indeed, deficits in the sensorimotor gating processes are commonly shown in schizophrenic patients using PPI of the startle reflex (Braff et al, 1978Perry and Braff, 1994;Kumari et al, 2000;Parwani et al, 2000). These PPI deficits seem to be best treated by atypical antipsychotics, as risperidone and clozapine normalized information processing functions in schizophrenic patients (Kumari et al, 1999, whereas this was not the case in such patients treated with typical neuroleptics (Braff et al, 1978Bolino et al, 1992;Grillon et al, 1992).…”

The Effects of the Preferential 5-HT2A Agonist Psilocybin on Prepulse Inhibition of Startle in Healthy Human Volunteers Depend on Interstimulus Interval

“…According to the sensorimotor gating concept, PPI is considered as an example of mechanisms that limit sensory information overflow, facilitate selective attention, and enable efficient processing of relevant information. Reductions in PPI have been demonstrated with some consistency in schizophrenia (eg, Braff et al, 1978(eg, Braff et al, , 1992Ludewig et al, 2003a, b;Kumari et al, 2000;Parwani et al, 2000;Quednow et al, 2006), schizotypal personality disorder (Cadenhead et al, 1993(Cadenhead et al, , 2000, and psychotic bipolar mania (Perry et al, 2001). These results contributed to the view that schizophrenia patients suffer from a sensory inundation caused by a general inability to filter out relevant from irrelevant external stimuli automatically (Geyer and Braff, 1987).…”