Authors: Trine Damgaard Niels Plath Jo C Neill Suzanne L Hansen
Publish Date: 2010/10/19
Volume: 214, Issue: 2, Pages: 403-413
Abstract
Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder comprised of three main classes of symptoms positive negative and cognitive symptoms Currently no approved treatment exists for the cognitive symptoms There is thus a great need for research aiming at identifying novel targets for treatment of this indication Several neurotransmitter systems are affected in schizophrenia patients including the γamino butyric acid GABAergic system demonstrated by reduced parvalbumincontaining interneurons glutamate decarboxylase GAD and the GABA transporter GAT1 Furthermore gene expression of several GABAA receptor subunits such as α1 α4 and δ is reduced in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of schizophrenia patientsThe psychotomimetic NMDA receptor antagonist phencyclidine PCP is frequently employed to model schizophrenia in animal disease models Subchronic PCP treatment of female hooded Lister rats has repeatedly been shown to induce impairments in object recognition memory and this model was therefore chosen for the examination of the potential of positive modulation of extrasynaptic GABAA receptors in alleviating the PCPinduced deficitTrine Damgaard is supported by a PhD studentship funded by H Lundbeck A/S and the Drug Research Academy Pharmaceutical Faculty University of Copenhagen The Oticon foundation is thanked for financial support for the research stay at the University of Bradford where these studies were conducted
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