Can one model the social deficits of autism and schizophrenia in animals?

2011-05-08

(Press-News.org) Philadelphia, PA - 5 May 2011 - The use of animal models to study human disease is essential to help advance our understanding of disease and to develop new therapeutic treatments.

Social deficits are common in several psychiatric disorders, including autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia. Individuals with severe social dysfunction can experience significant difficulties with everyday functioning.

Oxytocin and vasopressin are hormones that play key roles in emotional and social behaviors and bonding. Oxytocin has been suggested as a treatment to improve social behavior in individuals with autism, and initial studies in humans appear promising.

Now, scientists have further characterized a mouse model that provides some insights into biological factors related to social deficits, by comparing mice that had their oxytocin receptor gene made inactive, using a specialized technique called genetic knockout, with unaltered mice.

The knockout mice (OTR-/-) displayed impaired social behavior, increased aggression and reduced cognitive flexibility leading to resistance to change. These behaviors returned to normal when the OTR-/- mice were given oxytocin or vasopressin treatment.

"These findings confirm and highlight the importance of oxytocin for social behaviors. This animal model also may be useful in evaluating the effectiveness of drugs, including vasopressin agonists, that may help improve social behavior in autism, schizophrenia, and other disorders," said Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, the journal publishing these results.

"While no animal model can be expected to replicate the full complexity of the human behavioral autistic phenotype, the OTR-/- mouse may really help to understand the co-occurrence of these symptoms as a syndrome," explained Dr. Bice Chini, author and senior researcher of CNR - Institute of Neuroscience, Milano.

One important goal now is to fully characterize the neurodevelopmental processes modulated by oxytocin and vasopressin in order to fully understand their ability to reverse autistic symptoms.

###

Notes to Editors

The article is "Pharmacologic Rescue of Impaired Cognitive Flexibility, Social Deficits, Increased Aggression, and Seizure Susceptibility in Oxytocin Receptor Null Mice: A Neurobehavioral Model of Autism" by Mariaelvina Sala, Daniela Braida, Daniela Lentini, Marta Busnelli, Elisabetta Bulgheroni, Valeria Capurro, Annamaria Finardi, Andrea Donzelli, Linda Pattini, Tiziana Rubino, Daniela Parolaro, Katsuhiko Nishimori, Marco Parenti, and Bice Chini. Sala, Braida, Busnelli, Capurro, Finardi, and Donzelli are affiliated with the Department of Pharmacology, Chemotherapy and Medical Toxicology, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy. Lentini and Parenti are affiliated with the Department of Experimental Medicine, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza, Italy. Busnelli, Bulgheroni, and Chini are from the Institute of Neuroscience, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Milan, Italy. Pattini is from the Department Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy. Rubino and Parolaro are with the Department of Structural and Functional Biology, University of Insubria, Busto Arsizio, Varese, Italy. Nishimori is affiliated with the Department Molecular and Cell Biology, Graduate School of Agricultural Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan. The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 69, Number 9 (May 1, 2011), published by Elsevier.

The authors' disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available in the article.

John H. Krystal, M.D. is Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and a research psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System. His disclosures of financial and conflicts of interests are available at http://journals.elsevierhealth.com/webfiles/images/journals/BPS/Biological_Psychiatry_Editorial_Disclosures_03_29_11.pdf.

Full text of the article mentioned above is available upon request. Contact Chris J. Pfister at c.pfister@elsevier.com to obtain a copy or to schedule an interview.

About Biological Psychiatry

This international rapid-publication journal is the official journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry. It covers a broad range of topics in psychiatric neuroscience and therapeutics. Both basic and clinical contributions are encouraged from all disciplines and research areas relevant to the pathophysiology and treatment of major neuropsychiatric disorders. Full-length reports of novel results, commentaries, case studies of unusual significance, and correspondence judged to be of high impact to the field are published, particularly those addressing genetic and environmental risk factors, neural circuitry and neurochemistry, and important new therapeutic approaches. Concise reviews and editorials that focus on topics of current research and interest are also published rapidly.

Biological Psychiatry (www.sobp.org/journal) is ranked 4th out of 117 Psychiatry titles and 13th out of 230 Neurosciences titles in the 2009 ISI Journal Citations Reports® published by Thomson Reuters. The 2009 Impact Factor score for Biological Psychiatry has increased to 8.926.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include SciVerse ScienceDirect, SciVerse Scopus, Reaxys, MD Consult and Nursing Consult, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai's Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

END

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LateRooms.com - Animal Collective to Play at Milan's Discoteca Alcatraz

2011-05-08

Experimental band Animal Collective are set to play a gig in Milan later this month, bringing their inimitable blend of folk and psychedelic noise to the city. The group will take the stage on May 25th and no doubt play plenty of tunes from their most recent record Merriweather Pavilion, arguably their most critically and commercially successful album. Animal Collective's live line-up is in a constant state of flux, but key members are Avey Tare, Deakin, Geologist and Panda Bear, who has received a lot of praise for his recent solo work. The Baltimore group are ...

Families need to know more about feeding tubes for elderly dementia patients

2011-05-08

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Despite evidence that feeding tubes do not improve survival rates or quality of life for elderly patients with advanced dementia, their frequency of use varies widely across the states. A new survey of family members finds that discussions surrounding the decision to place feeding tubes surgically are often inadequate. Advanced dementia is a terminal illness that often affects a patient's ability to eat. In prior research, Joan Teno, professor of community health at Brown University, has documented a striking variation in feeding ...

When the lungs come under pressure

2011-05-08

Patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension struggle with severe symptoms, which include shortness of breath, exhaustion and a lack of vitality. Moreover, the disease, which is more common in women, often claims the patient's life within a few years of its development. The currently available methods of treatment can slow down the progression of the disease and improve the symptoms; a cure, however, has thus far been unavailable. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research and Giessen University have now succeeded - for the first time in an animal ...

eQuoteMD Releases a Comprehensive Guide on What Doctors Need to Know When Purchasing Medical Malpractice Insurance

2011-05-08

As part of an ongoing commitment to empower physicians who purchase medical malpractice insurance, eQuoteMD.com is a releasing a comprehensive white paper delineating the most important topics and factors associated with a doctor's decisions when purchasing and maintaining medical malpractice insurance coverage. This exposition into the world of physician's liability coverage will serve to educate medical professionals who must make important decisions about this type of insurance in an effort to protect the practice's they have built. This literary resource will assist ...

Reptile 'cousins' shed new light on end-Permian extinction

2011-05-08

An international team of researchers studied the parareptiles, a diverse group of bizarre-looking terrestrial vertebrates which varied in shape and size. Some were small, slender, agile and lizard-like creatures, while others attained the size of rhinos; many had knobbly ornaments, fringes, and bony spikes on their skulls. The researchers found that, surprisingly, parareptiles were not hit much harder by the end-Permian extinction than at any other point in their 90 million-year history. Furthermore, the group as a whole declined and diversified time and time again ...

Combination of ADHD and poor emotional control runs in families

2011-05-08

A subgroup of adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) also exhibit excessive emotional reactions to everyday occurrences, and this combination of ADHD and emotional reactivity appears to run in families. A study from a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-based research team finds that siblings of individuals with both ADHD and deficient emotional self-regulation (DESR) had a significantly greater risk of having both conditions than did siblings of those with ADHD alone. The study, which will appear in the American Journal of Psychiatry, has received ...

World's blueberries protected in unique, living collection

2011-05-08

Familiar blueberries and their lesser-known wild relatives are safeguarded by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and curators at America's official blueberry genebank. The plants, collected from throughout the United States and more than two dozen foreign countries, are growing at the USDA Agricultural Research Service National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis, Ore. The blueberries are maintained as outdoor plants, potted greenhouse and screenhouse specimens, tissue culture plantlets, or as seeds, according to research leader Kim E. Hummer. The ...

Mom or dad has bipolar disorder? Keep stress in check

2011-05-08

This release is available in French. Montreal May 5, 2011 – Children whose mother or father is affected by bipolar disorder may need to keep their stress levels in check. A new international study, led by Concordia University, suggests the stress hormone cortisol is a key player in the mood disorder. The findings published in Psychological Medicine, are the first to show that cortisol is elevated more readily in these children in response to the stressors of normal everyday life. "Previous research has shown that children of parents with bipolar disorder are four times ...

Artful dodgers: Responding but not answering often undetected

2011-05-08

WASHINGTON -- How can some people respond to a question without answering the question, yet satisfy their listeners? This skill of "artful dodging" and how to better detect it are explored in an article published by the American Psychological Association. People typically judge a speaker with the goal of forming an opinion of the speaker, which can make them susceptible to dodges, according to the study published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. Limited attention capacity is another reason people fall for dodges, said the authors, citing a previous ...

Surgery reduces risk of mortality due to prostate cancer even for low-risk groups

2011-05-08

A Swedish research team partly consisting of researchers from Uppsala University followed a group of prostate cancer patients in the Nordic region for 15 years. The study found, among other things, that surgery reduces the risk that men with prostate cancer (even those with low-risk tumours) will die within 15 years. The results were published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers followed Swedish, Finnish and Icelandic prostate cancer patients. Radical prostatectomy (surgical removal of the prostate gland) was performed on 347 randomly chosen ...

Can one model the social deficits of autism and schizophrenia in animals?

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: