Animal Models of Schizophrenia and Related Disorders, 2011 Neuromethods Series, Vol. 59

Animal models of schizophrenia and other major psychiatric disorders have been sought for decades, and, as a result, we are now facing new vistas on pathophysiology that could lead to novel therapeutic approaches and even hint at possible preventive strategies. Animal Models of Schizophrenia and Related Disorders presents an overview of the information that can be obtained with several different models and a detailed account of how to generate such models in order to ensure that the manipulations used to model schizophrenia-relevant phenomena are used consistently across laboratories.  This detailed volume features pharmacological models such as non-competing NMDA antagonists, emphasizing their use in vitro, neurodevelopmental models such as the neonatal ventral hippocampal lesion and the antimitotic MAM, models that reproduce environmental factors such as neonatal hypoxia, vitamin D deficits, and prenatal immune activation, as well as several different genetic model approaches.  As a volume in the Neuromethods series, this volume contains the kind of detailed description and implementation advice that is crucial for getting optimal results.

Practical and cutting-edge, Animal Models of Schizophrenia and Related Disorders highlights the successes in the use of animal models to gain insight on pathophysiological mechanisms of relevance to major psychiatric disorders in the hope of inspiring investigators to expand the research and test targets that could restore or ameliorate function.

A Method to the Madness:  Producing the Neonatal Ventral Hippocampal Lesion Rat Model of Schizophrenia.- Gestational MAM (Methylazoxymethanol Acetate) Administration: A Promising Animal Model for Psychosis Onset.- Prenatal Infection and Immune Models of Schizophrenia.- The Hypoxic Rat Model for Obstetric Complications in Schizophrenia.- The Developmental Vitamin D (DVD) Model of Schizophrenia.- Studying Schizophrenia in a Dish: Use of Primary Neuronal Cultures to Study the Long Term Effects of NMDA Receptor Antagonists on Parvalbumin-Positive Fast-Spiking Interneurons.- Glutathione Deficit and Redox Dysregulation in Animal Models of Schizophrenia.- Psychiatric Genetics and the Generation of Mutant Animal Models.- DISC1 Mouse Models.- Genetically-Engineered Mice for Schizophrenia Research.- Epigenetic Animal Models of GABAergic Deficit in Mental Disorders.- Modeling Schizophrenia in Neuregulin 1 and ErbB4 Mutant Mice.