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Date Permissions Signed
7-23-2010
Date of Award
2010
Document Type
Masters Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Mana, Michael J.
Second Advisor
Finlay, Janet M.
Third Advisor
Symons, Larry
Abstract
The symptoms of schizophrenia are highly variable and include a variety of cognitive deficits, including attentional deficit. These cognitive deficits may involve dopamine (DA) underactivity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) (Weinberger, Egan, Bertolino, Callicott, Mattay, Lipska, et al., 2001). The purpose of this thesis was to test the hypothesis that reduced DA in the PFC alters attention by examining the effects of reduced DA in the medial PFC (mPFC) of rats on a sustained attention task. Rats in the DA-lesioned group were administered 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) in the mPFC. Following 6-OHDA administration, rats in the DA-lesioned and shamlesioned group were trained to nose poke into a lit aperture for food reward in the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT), a rodent analogue of the Continuous Performance Task used to assess sustained attention in schizophrenics (Robbins, 2002). The 6-OHDA administration resulted in depletions of both DA (33% of controls) and norepinephrine (NE) (50% of controls). Rats' performance was assessed by comparing the frequency of correct, incorrect, omitted, and premature responses in testing conditions where the duration of stimulus in the 5-CSRTT was randomly varied from 2.5 to 0.25 seconds. No significant differences between lesioned and control rats were observed in any behavioral testing parameters. However, there was a trend toward increased numbers of omissions and reduced correct responses seen in lesioned rats especially at the shortest stimulus durations. The trend supports the hypothesis that reduced DA in the PFC contributes to attentional dysfunction in schizophrenia. Future studies should examine the behavioral effects of 6-OHDA lesions using larger sample sizes. Also, future studies should examine rats' 5-CSRTT performance at stimulus durations less than 0.25 seconds to further explore the trend toward poorer performance seen in 6-OHDA lesioned rats.
Type
Text
DOI
https://doi.org/10.25710/4h5j-jk41
Publisher
Western Washington University
OCLC Number
664878006
Subject – LCSH
Schizophrenia--Physiological aspects; Attention--Physiological aspects; Neurophysiology--Physiological aspects; Dopamine--Physiological effect; Prefrontal cortex
Format
application/pdf
Genre/Form
masters theses
Language
English
Rights
Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this thesis for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author's written permission.
Recommended Citation
Magnusson, Rabia V., "Five-choice serial reaction time task performance following catecholamine depletion of rat medial prefrontal cortex: implications for attention deficit in schizophrenia" (2010). WWU Graduate School Collection. 79.
https://cedar.wwu.edu/wwuet/79