Comparative studies on the risk of sensorimotor gating deficits in animal models of early amino acid/protein malnutrition.

流行病学研究提供的证据表明，早期营养不良可能会增加患精神分裂症的风险。本研究的目的是阐明早期氨基酸/蛋白质营养不良对感觉运动门控缺陷的影响，这与精神分裂症有关。我们研究了前脉冲抑制（PPI）的两种不同的小鼠模型的早期营养不足，重新捕获遗传丝氨酸缺乏症和产前蛋白质营养不良。PPI是感觉运动门控的操作测量，其在精神分裂症的人类患者和啮齿动物模型中均受损。我们观察到，在成年期，宁静缺乏模型和蛋白质营养不良模型以性别特异性方式显示PPI水平降低。这些结果表明，在早期发育阶段，丝氨酸缺乏和蛋白质营养不良都会增加性别依赖性感觉运动门控缺陷的风险

Epidemiological studies provide evidence showing that early malnutrition may increase the risk ofschizophrenia. The goal of the present study is to clarify effects of early amino acid/protein malnutrition on sensorimotor gating deficits, which have relevance to schizophrenia. We examined prepulse inhibition (PPI) of two different mouse models of early nutritional deficiencies, which recapture genetic serine deficiency and prenatal protein malnutrition. PPI is an operational measure of sensorimotor gating that is impaired in both human patients and rodent models of schizophrenia. We observed that in adulthood the serene deficiency model and the protein malnutrition model exhibited reduced levels of PPI in a gender specific manner. These results suggest that both serine deficiency and protein malnutrition during early developmental stages increase the risk of sex-dependent sensorimotor gating deficits