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Review
. 2022 May 25;23(11):5968.
doi: 10.3390/ijms23115968.

Advantages and Limitations of Animal Schizophrenia Models

Magdalena Białoń  1 , Agnieszka Wąsik  1
Affiliations
Review

Advantages and Limitations of Animal Schizophrenia Models

Magdalena Białoń et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Mental illness modeling is still a major challenge for scientists. Animal models of schizophrenia are essential to gain a better understanding of the disease etiopathology and mechanism of action of currently used antipsychotic drugs and help in the search for new and more effective therapies. We can distinguish among pharmacological, genetic, and neurodevelopmental models offering various neuroanatomical disorders and a different spectrum of symptoms of schizophrenia. Modeling schizophrenia is based on inducing damage or changes in the activity of relevant regions in the rodent brain (mainly the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus). Such artificially induced dysfunctions approximately correspond to the lesions found in patients with schizophrenia. However, notably, animal models of mental illness have numerous limitations and never fully reflect the disease state observed in humans.

Keywords: amphetamine; animal models of schizophrenia; disrupted-in-schizophrenia 1 (DISC-1) gene; dizocilpine (MK-801); ketamine; maternal immune activation (MIA); methylazoxymethanol acetate (MAM); neonatal ventral hippocampal lesion (NVHL); neurotrophic factor neuregulin 1 (NRG1); phencyclidine (PCP).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schizophrenia symptoms.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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