Alissa is studying the effects of a drug treatment on a new animal model that shows schizophrenia symptoms. Schizophrenia is a disease that affects millions of people worldwide yet relatively little is known about it. One way of studying diseases like schizophrenia is to use an animal “model”, which is an animal species or strain that shows, or can be made to show, symptoms of the disease. Animal models of schizophrenia are useful tools for researching the possible origins of the disease and how the disease progresses, and for testing potential treatments. The Ryan/Doucette lab at UPEI is working with a novel animal model of schizophrenia to study development and treatment of the disease under a variety of conditions.
One of the symptoms of Schizophrenia is reduced “sensorimotor gating” (where the nervous system doesn’t communicate well with the muscles, slowing or changing responses to stimuli) In rats, sensorimotor gating can be measured by looking at a process called “pre-pulse inhibition”. When an animal is startled, for example by a loud noise, they produce an obvious startle response that researchers can see. But when an animal hears a less intense noise first (one that doesn’t startle them), then hears the louder noise, they don’t produce the startle response. This suppression of the startle response following the less intense stimulus is called Pre-pulse Inhibition or PPI. Reduced PPI (that is, where the startle response occurs even if there has been a previous stimulus) is seen in many mammals besides humans and rats, and is a good way to evaluate schizophrenia symptoms. A class of drugs called antipsychotics can correct the reduced PPI of humans and other animals which are thought to have schizophrenia.
Haloperidol is a typical antipsychotic used to treat the symptoms of schizophrenia, and is generally been shown to correct the reduced PPI of affected individuals. Alissa’s study looked at the effects of this drug on the new animal model developed in the Doucette lab to see whether chronic dosing of these rats with Haloperidol would correct the previously seen reduced PPI levels.
Student Research