Reversal of Sensorimotor Gating Deficits in Brattleboro Rats by Acute Administration of Clozapine and a Neurotensin Agonist, but not Haloperidol: a Potential Predictive Model for Novel Antipsychotic Effects

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of acoustic startle is decreased in unmedicated schizophrenia patients and similar deficits can be induced in rats through pharmacological, environmental, or neuroanatomical manipulations. Recently, we reported that Brattleboro (BB) rats, a Long Evans (LE) strain with a single gene mutation, have inherent deficits in PPI homologous to those observed in schizophrenia patients. We also reported that PPI deficits in BB rats could be reversed by chronic but not acute administration of 0.5 mg/kg haloperidol. No other dose or drug was tested in that experiment. In this study, we tested the effects of acute subcutaneous administration of several doses of haloperidol as well as the second-generation antipsychotic, clozapine, and the putative novel antipsychotic, PD149163, a neurotensin mimetic that crosses the blood–brain barrier. Consistent with our previous report, BB rats exhibited PPI deficits compared to LE rats and none of the doses of haloperidol produced a significant effect on this PPI deficit. In contrast, 10 and 15 mg/kg of clozapine and all the doses of PD149163 tested reversed the PPI deficits in BB rats. In addition, haloperidol, but not clozapine or PD149163 produced significant catalepsy in BB rats, supporting the notion that PD149163 has a profile consistent with atypical antipsychotics and providing support for the predictive validity of the PPI results. These results further strengthen the notion that the BB rat is a useful predictive model of antipsychotic efficacy and suggest that this model may differentiate between antipsychotics belonging to different therapeutic categories, for example, first- and second-generation agents.