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[Behavioral and neurobiological abnormalities induced by social isolation as a useful animal model of schizophrenia.] [Article in Chinese]

LEI Ming, LUO Lu, MA Shi-Qi, ZHANG Yan, WU Xi-Hong, LI Liang^*

Department of Psychology, College of Life Sciences, Speech and Hearing Research Center, Key Laboratory on Machine Perception (Ministry of Education), Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

Abstract

Social isolation influences the development of the brain, causing dysfunctions at behavioral, cellular and molecular levels. The present paper summarizes the abnormalities induced by social isolation in behaviors, neurotransmitters and cell apoptosis. At the behavioral level, social isolation induces hyperlocomotion, abnormalities in startle reflex and prepulse inhibition (PPI), and dysfunctions in conditioned learning, reversal learning and memory. Moreover, social isolation causes changes of neurotransmitters, such as the increase of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, the amygdala and other brain regions in the limbic system, the decrease of dopamine in medial prefrontal cortex, the decrease of 5-HT in the nucleus accumbens and the hippocampus, and changes of glutamine in the prefrontal cortex. Finally, social isolation affects cell apoptosis in different brain areas, such as the medial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and hippocampus. Both the changes in neurotransmitters and cell apoptosis may contribute to the behavioral dysfunctions in social isolated rats. Since schizophrenic patients have similar abnormalities in behaviors and neurotransmitters, isolation rearing can be used as a useful animal model of schizophrenia.

Key words: social isolation; schizophrenia; prepulse inhibition; neurotransmitter; cell apoptosis

Received: 2012-04-30　　Accepted: 2012-11-23

Corresponding author: 李量　　E-mail: liangli@pku.edu.cn

Citing This Article：

LEI Ming, LUO Lu, MA Shi-Qi, ZHANG Yan, WU Xi-Hong, LI Liang. [Behavioral and neurobiological abnormalities induced by social isolation as a useful animal model of schizophrenia.] [Article in Chinese]. Acta Physiol Sin 2013; 65 (1): 101-108 (in Chinese with English abstract).