Project Summary

Shitij Kapur, M.D., Ph.D. (Independent Investigator 2002) of Centre For Addiction and Mental Health, will conduct a series of studies to examine the effect of various antipsychotics on the rat mother-infant interaction and the role of dopamine and serotonin systems and brain regions such as the accumbens, amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.  He hypothesizes that the current antipsychotics, via their blockade of the dopamine system in the emotional areas of the brain (mesolimbic), alter the motivational drive of rat-mothers, thus leading to alterations in maternal behavior, as he has recently demonstrated that both typical and atypical antipsychotics disrupt various aspects of maternal behavior and mother-infant interaction.  Most animal models of schizophrenia have focused on simple outcome measures such as the running-speed, startle response, or shock-avoidance, etc.  Dr. Kapur believes that to go beyond our current knowledge of schizophrenia, it will be necessary to focus on more complex, ethologically-relevant, social behaviors.  This study may increase our understanding of how antipsychotics cause a disruption of maternal-behavior, and could be instructive for the development of future antipsychotics.

Program Area: SCHIZOPHRENIA/PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS\Schizophrenia

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