Supplement Treatment with NAC and Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids during Pregnancy Partially Prevents Schizophrenia-Related Outcomes in the Poly I:C Rat Model.

Background: Heightened levels of inflammation and oxidative stress are thought to be involved in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. We aimed to assess whether intake of anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant drugs during pregnancy prevents later schizophrenia-related outcomes in a neurodevelopmental rat model of this disorder.

Methods: Pregnant Wistar rats were injected with polyriboinosinic-polyribocytidilic acid (Poly I:C) or saline and subsequently treated with either N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) or omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) until delivery.

Adolescent raloxifene treatment in females prevents cognitive deficits in a neurodevelopmental rodent model of schizophrenia.

The existence of sex differences in schizophrenia is a well documented phenomenon which led to the hypothesis that female sex hormones are neuroprotective and hence responsible for the more favorable disease characteristics seen in women. The current study sought to investigate the effects of estrogen-like agents administered during early adolescence on behavioral outcomes in adulthood using the neurodevelopmental maternal immune activation (MIA) rodent model of schizophrenia. Female MIA offspring were administered during the asymptomatic period of adolescence with either 17β-estradiol, raloxifene or saline and were tested in late adolescence and adulthood for schizophrenia-related behavioral performance.

Recurrent stress across life may improve cognitive performance in individual rats, suggesting the induction of resilience.

Depressive symptoms are often accompanied by cognitive impairments and recurrent depressive episodes are discussed as a potential risk for dementia. Especially, stressful life events are considered a potent risk factor for depression. Here, we induced recurrent stress-induced depressive episodes over the life span of rats, followed by cognitive assessment in the symptom-free period.

Prevention of schizophrenia deficits via non-invasive adolescent frontal cortex stimulation in rats.

Schizophrenia is a severe neurodevelopmental psychiatric affliction manifested behaviorally at late adolescence/early adulthood. Current treatments comprise antipsychotics which act solely symptomatic, are limited in their effectiveness and often associated with side-effects. We here report that application of non-invasive transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) during adolescence, prior to schizophrenia-relevant behavioral manifestation, prevents the development of positive symptoms and related neurobiological alterations in the maternal immune stimulation (MIS) model of schizophrenia.

Learning deficits in rats overexpressing the dopamine transporter.

With its capacity to modulate motor control and motivational as well as cognitive functions dopamine is implicated in numerous neuropsychiatric diseases. The present study investigated whether an imbalance in dopamine homeostasis as evident in the dopamine overexpressing rat model (DAT-tg), results in learning and memory deficits associated with changes in adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Adult DAT-tg and control rats were subjected to the Morris water maze, the radial arm maze and a discrimination reversal paradigm and newly generated neurons in hippocampal circuitry were investigated post mortem.