Project Summary

Simon Killcross, Ph.D. (Independent Investigator 2003) of Cardiff University, will capitalize on previous NARSAD-funded work that successfully examined the neurochemical role of traditional and atypical antipsychotics in the effects they produced on a basic form of response competition in animals. Patients suffering from schizophrenia often have difficulty making use of information in the world to direct their responses appropriately. His new work will make use of a novel behavioral task in animals that is more directly analogous to the type of response competition experienced by people, and that taps the function of two areas of the brain known to be involved in the underlying neuropathology of schizophrenia, the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. In this task, both direct cues for action and incidental, higher order cues for action are assessed. He will determine the underlying neurochemical changes that occur in animals performing this task, focusing in particular on the way in which the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex each contribute to task performance, and the manner in which they might interact. He will also extend the understanding of the precise role of typical and atypical antipsychotics in reducing cognitive disturbances experienced in schizophrenia. This project will further the understanding of the neurochemical changes that are responsible for alterations in cognitive processes in schizophrenia, and the possible reversal of these changes by typical and atypical antipsychotics.

Program Area: SCHIZOPHRENIA/PSYCHOTIC DISORDERS\Schizophrenia

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