Prenatal infection impairs social communication

IF 5.9 3区农林科学 Q1 VETERINARY SCIENCES

Lab Animal Pub Date : 2025-06-03 DOI:10.1038/s41684-025-01565-w

Jorge Ferreira

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Abstract

Sequencing deficits are considered a core feature of schizophrenia. A study in Behavioral Brain Research used the maternal immune activation (MIA) rat model—a model of increased neurodevelopmental disorder risk linked to prenatal infection—to investigate alterations in ultrasonic vocalization (USV) sequencing. While basic USV features remained intact, MIA rats exhibited significant disruptions in call sequence structure compared to control rats. Using USV sequence analysis with Markov chain analysis to study transition between vocalization types and Damerau-Levenshtein distance to study how different the sequences are across two datasets, researchers observed altered transition probabilities and reduced sequence similarity in MIA offspring compared to controls. These findings suggest that MIA selectively impairs higher-order vocal organization, linked to social communication, without affecting vocal production capacity. The results show the potential of using USV sequencing analysis as a preclinical behavioral marker of disrupted cognitive organization, relevant to schizophrenia. These results also reinforce the utility of the MIA model for studying sequence processing abnormalities in neuropsychiatric conditions.

Original reference: Scott, K. J., Speers, L. J. and Bilkey, D. K. Behav. Brain Res. 488, 115596 (2025)

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产前感染会损害社会交往

测序缺陷被认为是精神分裂症的核心特征。《行为脑研究》上的一项研究使用了母体免疫激活（MIA）大鼠模型——一种与产前感染相关的神经发育障碍风险增加的模型——来研究超声发声（USV）序列的改变。虽然基本的USV特征保持完整，但与对照组相比，MIA大鼠在呼叫序列结构上表现出明显的破坏。利用USV序列分析和马尔可夫链分析来研究发声类型和Damerau-Levenshtein距离之间的转换，以研究序列在两个数据集之间的差异，研究人员观察到MIA后代的转换概率与对照组相比有所改变，序列相似性降低。这些研究结果表明，MIA选择性地损害了与社会交流相关的高阶发声组织，而不影响发声能力。结果显示，使用USV测序分析作为与精神分裂症相关的认知组织紊乱的临床前行为标志物的潜力。这些结果也加强了MIA模型在研究神经精神疾病中序列处理异常的效用。原始参考：Scott， K. J, Speers， L. J和Bilkey， D. K. Behav。中国生物医学工程学报，2016,33(5):357 - 357。

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来源期刊

Lab Animal 农林科学-兽医学

CiteScore

0.60

自引率

2.90%

发文量

181

审稿时长

>36 weeks

期刊介绍： LabAnimal is a Nature Research journal dedicated to in vivo science and technology that improves our basic understanding and use of model organisms of human health and disease. In addition to basic research, methods and technologies, LabAnimal also covers important news, business and regulatory matters that impact the development and application of model organisms for preclinical research. LabAnimal's focus is on innovative in vivo methods, research and technology covering a wide range of model organisms. Our broad scope ensures that the work we publish reaches the widest possible audience. LabAnimal provides a rigorous and fair peer review of manuscripts, high standards for copyediting and production, and efficient publication.