Isolation rearing-induced deficits in prepulse inhibition and locomotor habituation are not potentiated by water deprivation

Sex differences in animal models of schizophrenia shed light on the underlying pathophysiology

“…Of the 102 original manuscripts published on 'social isolation rearing and schizophrenia', only 9 studies assessed both males and females, with the remaining studies either using just males, or not reporting sex. Studies from the laboratory of Geyer and Reynolds showed no significant interactions between housing and sex on PPI in Long-Evans rats, however, in a separate cohort (n = 30/group), female isolated rats showed deficits in PPI, while males did not, although, this sex difference is difficult to interpret as females in this cohort were 3 weeks younger than males (Powell et al 2002). Additional studies by this group chose to only focus on female isolated rats, based on this apparent female bias in PPI disruption (Harte et al 2004;Harte et al 2007).…”

“…Male but not female isolated rats showed significantly more centre entries in the locomotor cell (anxiolytic) when compared to socially reared controls (Powell et al 2002). This male specific anxiolytic effect of isolation rearing was also reported in mice, whereby isolated males spent less time in the closed arms of the elevated plus-maze (Guo et al 2004).…”

“…No sex diff. (Ko et al 2015) Male-specific anxiolytic phenotype (Powell et al 2002;Guo et al 2004) Male-specific alterations in COMT, Grid2, Slcla2 and Nrg1 gene expression in the MPFC and nucleus accumbens (Swerdlow et al 2013). …”

Realistic expectations of prepulse inhibition in translational models for schizophrenia research

“…While each of these variations is based on a biological "construct" for the etiology of schizophrenia, i.e., hyperdopaminergia, hypoglutamatergia, and specific neurodevelopmental insults, they have all been applied towards predicting antipsychotic properties in novel compounds. In truth, only the former two variants are well suited to traditional "rapid throughput" drug screens, based on the amount of time and resources necessary for the developmental models, and the relatively small (and often strain-or sex-dependent) effects of isolation rearing on PPI (Weiss et al 1999(Weiss et al , 2000Powell et al 2002). In each of these variations, the ability of a drug to "normalize" PPI is interpreted as evidence for antipsychotic potential.…”

Finasteride administration potentiates the disruption of prepulse inhibition induced by forced swim stress

“…Previous studies have shown that distinct acute or chronic stress paradigms can decrease PPI responses. This effect of stress on PPI has been described in social isolated mice [8] and Wistar [9] or female LongEvans hooded rats [10], after acute restraint stress in C57BL/6 mice [11] or repeated restraint stress in Brown Norway rats [12], and http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2015.04.023 0166-4328/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. after rapid eye movement sleep deprivation [13] or predator exposure [14] in male Sprague-Dawley rats.…”