Moore et al.

Moore et al.

            The behavioral analyses of Moore et al are slightly unclear. While Moore et al states what behaviors they are testing for they do not explain what these behaviors exactly translate to in schizophrenia. I can only infer that the “motor control in MAM-E17 and MAM-E15 offspring,” “prepulse inhibition of startle,” and “orofacial dyskinesia” translate to various disorganized and catatonic behaviors and “reversal learning” translates to perseveration or lack thereof.

            Otherwise, the study was well designed and well established. The behavioral paradigms were well explained in terms of method, as were their procedures. Most of their findings were convincing in the sense that MAM-E15 was found not to be selective of brain regions when MAM-17 was selective of subcortical and cerebral regions more indicative of a schizophrenia-like pattern. This is displayed in Figure 4A, in which there was a change in cerebral cortical thickness demonstrating significant differences in all three groups (control, MAM-E15 and MAM-E17). The control rats demonstrate the most cerebral cortical thickness in Figure 4A which highlights the prefrontal cortex, the frontoparietal cortex, the perirhinal cortex and the occipital, followed by the MAM-E17 treated animals and lastly, the MAM-E15 treated animals demonstrated the most reduced cerebral cortical thickness, due to the fact that they had nonspecific reduction in cortical areas.

            Despite my feelings of ambiguity on presentation of behavioral analyses and their symptomatic counterparts, the authors' results were convincing in this domain as well. Something that I found interesting was in reference to Figure 7A (ataxia score). While MAM-E15 treated animals achieved a higher ataxia score than MAM-E17 treated animals with a 5.0mg/kg dose of PCP, they also had a significant baseline score with no dose administered. This is also likely due to the fact that they experienced a nonspecific reduction in their cortical regions unlike MAM-17 treated animals.