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Characteristics of the Formation of Memories Relating to Fear in Mice with Depression- and Schizophrenia-Like Phenotypes: Effects of Gender and Age

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We report here a comparative analysis of the acquisition of a conditioned passive avoidance reaction in mice of the mutant strains DISC1-Q31L and DISC1-L100P and mice of the control strain C57Bl/6NCr1 and detection of the effects of gender and age on learning. DISC1-L100P mice showed impairments to associative learning to avoid the dangerous dark sector of the apparatus regardless of gender and age. In DISC1-Q31L mice, the fear memory trace formed only in young males. A deficit of aversive learning was demonstrated in old mice of all the strains tested, with identically lower levels of learning ability in female DISC1-Q31L and C57Bl/6NCr1 mice than males. These characteristics of learning avoidance provide an additional argument for regarding DISC1-L100P mice as a genetic model of a schizophrenia-like state and DISC1-Q31L mice as a model of a depression-like state.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute of Physiology and Basic Medicine, Novosibirsk, Russia

    N. I. Dubrovina, M. V. Khrapova & T. V. Lipina

  2. Novosibirsk National Research State University, Novosibirsk, Russia

    M. V. Khrapova & T. V. Lipina

Authors
  1. N. I. Dubrovina
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  2. M. V. Khrapova
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  3. T. V. Lipina
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Correspondence to N. I. Dubrovina.

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Translated from Rossiiskii Fiziologicheskii Zhurnal imeni I. M. Sechenova, Vol. 103, No. 1, pp. 10–21, January, 2017.

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Dubrovina, N.I., Khrapova, M.V. & Lipina, T.V. Characteristics of the Formation of Memories Relating to Fear in Mice with Depression- and Schizophrenia-Like Phenotypes: Effects of Gender and Age. Neurosci Behav Physi 48, 488–495 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-018-0590-8

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