Children's enduring PTSD symptoms are related to their family's adaptability and cohesion.

This study compared, 18-24 months after an industrial disaster, in two groups of children (those with clinically relevant PTSD symptoms versus those with low PTSD symptoms), the child's perception of family cohesion and adaptability, the child's experience of the explosion, and parental characteristics. Enmeshed family cohesion or rigid family adaptability were more frequently found in children with low PTSD symptoms. PTSD symptoms in the mother, living in a family of 3 or more children, and being female were significantly associated with PTSD symptoms in the children.

Behavioral perturbations after prenatal neurogenesis disturbance in female rat.

The exposure to methylazoxymethanol (MAM) at embryonic day 17 (E17) results in behavioral anomalies in male rats that mimic several features of schizophrenia, including their emergence after puberty. Given that both men and women are likely to develop this illness and that currently no animal model is validated for females, we examined the behavioral consequences of E17 MAM exposure in female rats. We compared E17 MAM- and saline-exposed female rats before and/or after puberty for spontaneous activity, alternance and spatial recognition (Y-maze), spatial learning (Morris water maze), and sensory gating using the prepulse inhibition task.

Peri-pubertal maturation after developmental disturbance: a model for psychosis onset in the rat.

Schizophrenia is thought to be associated with abnormalities during neurodevelopment although those disturbances usually remain silent until puberty; suggesting that postnatal brain maturation precipitates the emergence of psychosis. In an attempt to model neurodevelopmental defects in the rat, brain cellular proliferation was briefly interrupted with methylazoxymethanol (MAM) during late gestation at embryonic day 17 (E17). The litters were explored at pre- and post-puberty and compared with E17 saline-injected rats.

Postnatal effect of embryonic neurogenesis disturbance on reelin level in organotypic cultures of rat hippocampus.

Despite a delayed emergence of the symptoms, schizophrenia is thought to be a late consequence of early disturbances during development. Several reports have found decreased levels of reelin in the cortex and the hippocampus of postmortem brains of schizophrenic patients. In the rat, intraperitoneal injection of the anti-mitotic agent methylazoxymethanol (MAM) during intra-uterine development (embryonic day 17) induces cytoarchitectural abnormalities in the hippocampus and the cortex and behavioural changes reminiscent of positive, negative and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia.