Spared motivational modulation of cognitive effort in a maternal immune activation model of schizophrenia risk.

Maternal immune activation (MIA) during gestation is a significant risk factor for development of schizophrenia and other neurodevelopmental diseases. In animal models of this risk factor, MIA during pregnancy can produce offspring that recapitulate certain aspects of the behavioral and neurophysiological impairments seen in schizophrenia. Here, the authors tested the effect of polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (poly I:C)-induced MIA in a task that explicitly assays the interaction between motivation and cognition.

Anti-anxiety drugs reduce conflict-specific "theta"--a possible human anxiety-specific biomarker.

Background: Syndromes of fear/anxiety are currently ill-defined, with no accepted human biomarkers for anxiety-specific processes. A unique common neural action of different classes of anxiolytic drugs may provide such a biomarker. In rodents, a reduction in low frequency (4-12 Hz; "theta") brain rhythmicity is produced by all anxiolytics (even those lacking panicolytic or antidepressant action) and not by any non-anxiolytics.