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The effect of the molecular weight of poly(I:C) on the development and behavior of offspring in the maternal immune activation model
Cmarková, Nathalie ; Brožka, Hana (advisor) ; Petrásek, Tomáš (referee)
Maternal inflammation during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of the development of psychiatric disorders in offspring, especially schizophrenia and autism. Prenatal treatment with poly(I:C), a viral mimetic, is a widely used model of maternal immune activation leading to developmental and behavioral alterations in offspring. However, results of studies are inconsistent possibly due to the differences in the molecular weight of used poly(I:C). In this thesis, the effect of different molecular weights of poly(I:C) was assessed. Pregnant Wistar rat females were treated by either high molecular weight (HMW) or low molecular weight (LMW) poly(I:C) on gestational day 14 to assess developmental and behavioral deficits relevant to schizophrenia and autism in offspring on postnatal day 12 and at three months. Prenatal exposition to the HMW poly(I:C) led to significantly reduced social behavior in the Homing test and a trend towards reduced USV vocalization in pups. The LMW pups showed significantly impaired negative geotaxis. In adulthood, the HMW and LMW offspring both exhibited significant social deficits and reduced anxiety. Anxiety was reduced mainly in the LMW group. This thesis revealed differences in behavioral outcomes between prenatal exposition to HMW and LMW poly(I:C). These...
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Memory and cognitive coordination impairment in rat models of neuropsychiatric diseases
Vojtěchová, Iveta ; Stuchlík, Aleš (advisor) ; Syka, Josef (referee) ; Hort, Jakub (referee)
The memory and spatial navigation are extremely important brain functions for humans, but they are often the question of life and death for animals. In humans, memory can be disrupted by various neuropsychiatric disorders. The patients suffering from Alzheimer's dementia (AD) have impaired working and long-term memory, spatial navigation, higher cognitive functions and social memory. The deficit of cognitive coordination (the skill to recognize the relevancy of incoming information) and disorientation belong to the symptomatology of schizophrenia. Intelectual disability appears in some patients with autism spectrum disorder. Unfortunately, it is not possible to cure these disorders efficiently because the etiology is not known in the majority of patients. The causes leading to development of these disorders could be revealed using animal models. This thesis contributes to the characterization of the cognitive skills disruptions - as well as other behavioral alterations - in selected rat models of AD (transgenic McGill rat, non-transgenic Samaritan rat) and schizophrenia (lipopolysaccharide model of early postnatal, or prenatal, bacterial infection). The thesis also discusses the validity and limitations of these models. Our results showed a severe deficit of spatial navigation, learning and...
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