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Cognitive and behavioral alterations in neurodevelopmental and pharmacological animal models of schizophrenia
Malenínská, Kristýna ; Stuchlík, Aleš (advisor) ; Blahna, Karel (referee) ; Telenský, Petr (referee)
Establishing reliable animal models of psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia is essential to better understand the neurobiological, behavioural and genetic basis of the disorder and to develop new drugs with greater therapeutic efficacy. These models allow the study of different aspects of schizophrenia, including positive, negative and cognitive symptoms similar to schizophrenia. All available animal models of schizophrenia can be divided into four different categories of induction: developmental, pharmacological, genetic and lesion-induced. However, none of these models perfectly replicates all aspects of schizophrenia in humans, and it is therefore necessary to precisely define the influence of each manipulation. This thesis focuses on the study of pharmacological and developmental animal models of schizophrenia, with an emphasis on examining the cognitive and behavioral changes associated with the disorder. Specifically, we investigated the pharmacological induction of schizophrenia- like symptoms by acute administration of MK-801, developmental models of two interventions combining the maternal immune response following poly(I:C) administration and subsequent stress of offspring in adolescence, and repeated prenatal and neonatal administration of lipopolysaccharide (LPS). In the...
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Ontogeny of neural mechanisms of episodic memory
Šafová, Lucie ; Nekovářová, Tereza (advisor) ; Blahna, Karel (referee)
Two brain structures in particular - the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex (PFC) - are essential for episodic memory, the ability to recall personal experiences with details of time, place, and event. It is their developmental changes that contribute significantly to the progressive development of episodic memory. The hippocampus is a complex structure composed of several subregions that is crucial to the function of the neural basis of episodic memory. Findings show that both neuronal changes within the hippocampus and changes in its volume and the volume of hippocampal subfields influence episodic memory. As in the hippocampus, changes in the prefrontal cortex also affect episodic memory, with the PFC being among the last regions to fully mature and affecting the accuracy of recalling contextual details of episodic memories. The transfer of information between brain regions is also crucial for episodic memories, and is provided by white matter connections (fornix, cingulum, uncinate fasciculus). This thesis summarizes the knowledge about the structures and mechanisms involved in the development of episodic memory and mentions the factors that influence its development. Keywords: episodic memory, ontogeny, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, synaptic plasticity
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Hippocampal activity during consolidation of complex spatial representations
Lavrova, Kseniia ; Kelemen, Eduard (advisor) ; Blahna, Karel (referee)
In the real world, we often need to understand complex spatial relationships and integrate existing knowledge. For example, when we learn a new route between familiar places, we need to integrate the new knowledge and create a new cognitive map of the space. Since the hippocampus is a key structure for episodic memory formation and spatial navigation, we examined the activity of hippocampal CA1 neurons when combining simple maps of a complex space. An experiment was designed, consisting of several phases, in each of which the rat was introduced to four different arms of the maze. In the first phase, the rat explored pairs of non-overlapping arms. In the second, it explored a combination of previously known arms, and in the third, all the arms of the labyrinth. During these visits, the rat had to understand the spatial relationships between the different combinations and create a complete map of the space. My results suggest that the rat was unable to understand the relationship between the independent arms before visiting the entire maze. While exploring the entire labyrinth, a completely new map for the maze was created, and there were also changes in the activity of neurons encoding already known combinations of arms. Keywords: hippocampus, sleep, remapping, place cells
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Spatial Cognition in Dynamic Environments
Blahna, Karel ; Stuchlík, Aleš (advisor) ; Syka, Josef (referee) ; Yamamotová, Anna (referee)
Innate and acquired navigational abilities of animals are often used for purposes cf study of neural mechanisms and modeling of cognitive functions. Detailed analysis of behavior allows Berger understanding of some brain structures, such as the hippocampus, entorhinal and posterior parietal cortices, and their role in these phenomena. Most of behavioral tasks involved stable environment, although the world surrounding us dynamically changes every minute. The thesis aimed at extending the knowledge of behavior of laboratory animals in mobile environments and the involvement of brain structures in processing of dynamit information.
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