4.3 Review

Disorganization of Oscillatory Activity in Animal Models of Schizophrenia

Journal

FRONTIERS IN NEURAL CIRCUITS
Volume 15, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fncir.2021.741767

Keywords

oscillations; schizophrenia; hippocampus; prefrontal cortex; synchrony; theta; gamma; phase precession

Categories

Funding

  1. Health Research Council of New Zealand [19/044]
  2. Neurological Foundation of New Zealand [1820SPG]
  3. psychology department at the University of Otago

Ask authors/readers for more resources

This article reviews the potential role of oscillatory circuits in schizophrenia, focusing on the hippocampus and frontal cortex. It discusses how a loss of oscillatory synchrony between brain regions may underlie some symptoms of the disorder. The disruption of phase precession in schizophrenia could contribute to cognitive symptoms such as deficits in memory and planning.
Schizophrenia is a chronic, debilitating disorder with diverse symptomatology, including disorganized cognition and behavior. Despite considerable research effort, we have only a limited understanding of the underlying brain dysfunction. In this article, we review the potential role of oscillatory circuits in the disorder with a particular focus on the hippocampus, a region that encodes sequential information across time and space, as well as the frontal cortex. Several mechanistic explanations of schizophrenia propose that a loss of oscillatory synchrony between and within these brain regions may underlie some of the symptoms of the disorder. We describe how these oscillations are affected in several animal models of schizophrenia, including models of genetic risk, maternal immune activation (MIA) models, and models of NMDA receptor hypofunction. We then critically discuss the evidence for disorganized oscillatory activity in these models, with a focus on gamma, sharp wave ripple, and theta activity, including the role of cross-frequency coupling as a synchronizing mechanism. Finally, we focus on phase precession, which is an oscillatory phenomenon whereby individual hippocampal place cells systematically advance their firing phase against the background theta oscillation. Phase precession is important because it allows sequential experience to be compressed into a single 120 ms theta cycle (known as a 'theta sequence'). This time window is appropriate for the induction of synaptic plasticity. We describe how disruption of phase precession could disorganize sequential processing, and thereby disrupt the ordered storage of information. A similar dysfunction in schizophrenia may contribute to cognitive symptoms, including deficits in episodic memory, working memory, and future planning.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.3
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available