Schizophrenia is a complex multifactorial disorder characterized by positive and negative symptoms, the decline in cognitive performance, and neurophysiological deficits including impaired sensory gating. Creative Biolabs conducts contract studies in a most widely validated animal model of the positive, negative and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia. This model is induced by administration of an open channel N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor blocker, phencyclidine (PCP).
Introduction of Phencyclidine (PCP) Model of Schizophrenia
Converging evidence supports the notion that dysfunction of the glutamatergic system is a primary pathophysiological change see in schizophrenia. Pharmacological evidence for the role of glutamate in schizophrenia centers on findings that blockade of the NMDA receptor by non-competitive antagonists, such as ketamine or PCP, produce a transient psychosis similar to that experienced by people with schizophrenia. In response to this discovery, NMDA antagonists such as PCP, ketamine, and dizocilpine have been used to create pharmacological animal models of schizophrenia in an attempt to better understand the role of glutamate hypofunction and to screen for new treatments.
A single administration of PCP (0.1-10 mg/kg) produces a wide assay of schizophrenia-relevant behaviors in rodents, such as hyperlocomotion, deficits in PPI and latent inhibition, social withdrawal, and impairment in performance on several animal cognition tasks, including set shifting, novel object recognition, spatial learning, and so on. Chronic administration of PCP produces more enduring social withdrawal and impairments in cognitive performance, but the duration of PPI deficits induced by acute and chronic PCP treatment seems to be comparable.
Fig.1 Pretreatment with SFN significantly attenuated PCP-induced cognitive deficit in mice in a novel object recognition test (NORT). (Shirai et al. 2015)1, 2
Features of Phencyclidine (PCP) Model of Schizophrenia
Assessments
To evaluate the antipsychotic efficacy and neuroprotective effect of potential drugs, a number of behavioral tests can be conducted, including pre-pulse inhibition, locomotor activity, spatial working memory, social interaction, etc. Biochemical analysis and immunohistochemical staining of brain tissues are usually performed as well. Creative Biolabs conducts assessments including but not limited to:
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The neurological platform of Creative Biolabs provides an extensive range of rodent neurological disease models. If you are interested, click the following links for more detailed description of each model:
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References
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