Gene-environment interaction of reelin and stress in cognitive behaviours in mice: Implications for schizophrenia

Abstract

Cognitive deficits are a particularly debilitating symptom group in schizophrenia. We investigated the effect of a 'two hit' combination of two factors implicated in schizophrenia development, reelin deficiency and stress, on cognitive behaviours in mice. Male and female heterozygous reelin mice (HRM) and wild-type (WT) controls received the stress hormone, corticosterone (CORT), during early adulthood to simulate chronic stress. The Y-maze, novel object recognition task (NORT), social interaction task and prepulse inhibition (PPI) were used to assess short-term spatial memory, visual non-spatial memory, social recognition memory and sensory gating, respectively. Reelin protein expression wa..