Yes / It has been suggested that the isolation rearing paradigm models certain
aspects of schizophrenia symptomatology. This study aimed to investigate
whether isolation rearing impairs rats’ performance in two models of
cognition: the novel object recognition (NOR) and attentional set-shifting
tasks, tests of episodic memory and executive function, respectively.
Two cohorts of female Hooded-Lister rats were used in these experiments.
Animals were housed in social isolation or in groups of five from weaning,
post-natal day 28. The first cohort was tested in the NOR test with
inter-trial intervals (ITIs) of 1 min up to 6 h. The second cohort was
trained and tested in the attentional set-shifting task. In the NOR test,
isolates were only able to discriminate between the novel and familiar
objects up to 1-h ITI, whereas socially reared animals remembered the
familiar object up to a 4-h ITI. In the attentional set-shifting task,
isolates were significantly and selectively impaired in the
extra-dimensional shift phase of the task (P < 0.01). Rats reared in
isolation show impaired episodic memory in the NOR task and reduced
ability to shift attention between stimulus dimensions in the attentional
set-shifting task. Because schizophrenic patients show similar deficits in
performance in these cognitive domains, these data further support
isolation rearing as a putative preclinical model of the cognitive deficits
associated with schizophrenia.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/8486 |
| Date | 17 July 2008 |
| Creators | McLean, Samantha L., Grayson, Ben, Harris, M., Protheroe, C., Bate, S., Woolley, M.L., Neill, Joanna C. |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, Accepted Manuscript |
| Rights | The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Journal of Psychopharmacology, vol 24/issue 1 by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. © 2010 SAGE Publications Ltd. |
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