Association between decreased social performance and increase of drug consumption in SHR strain: a possible unbalanced "hedonic tonus" in schizophrenia?

• Grant number: 17/05776-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2017
• End date: December 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Pharmacology - Neuropsychopharmacology
• Principal Investigator: Vanessa Costhek Abílio
• Grantee: Bianca Aparecida Muniz Pereira
• Host Institution: Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder characterized by a clinical condition that involves cognitive deficits, positive symptoms and negative symptoms - among them impairment in social performance and anhedonia. Studies indicate that anhedonia in schizophrenia results from impairment in the anticipatory phase of the hedonic process. This deficit is related to impairment in social performance, suggesting that a lower social interaction in schizophrenic patients os a result of the absence of pleasure in this behavior. In the animal model used by our laboratory for the study of schizophrenia, the SHR strain, has been seen a lack of preference for social stimuli, and this could characterize a social anhedonia. Despite anhedonia, schizophrenic patients are more susceptible to some stimuli considered pleasurable, such as substance abuse (observed in the SHR strain due to increased sucrose consumption). This may indicate that the increase in consumption behavior is a hedonic compensatory mechanism to social anhedonia. Therefore, the main objective of this project is to evaluate the existence of a hedonic tonus - a balance between different sources of pleasure - impaired in schizophrenia and that would be altered in the SHR strain. To test our hypothesis, we will conduct behavioral tests that evaluate the social performance and the behavior of consumption of reinforcing substances in rats. Thus, this work can contribute to the understanding of social hedonic deficits in schizophrenia, important to propose new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of negative symptoms (AU)