Halassa Lab

Project 2

The relationship between schizophrenia-relevant prefrontal E/I balance perturbations and specific cognitive deficits:

Schizophrenia is a disorder affecting millions worldwide, with almost all cases exhibiting some cognitive dysfunction. Improving cognitive function in these individuals could restore up to 1% of the global workforce. Although it is recognized that schizophrenia is associated with prefrontal dysfunction, E/I imbalance and cognitive deficits, how these three domains are linked together through a unifying framework is unclear. To at least partly address this issue, we are making prefrontal network E/I measurements in multiple mouse models relevant to schizophrenia, including the 22q11 deletion model, and attempting to connect individual metrics to changes in PFC-dependent task behavioral parameters. The brain-behavior correlates identified in this work appear to respond to targeted neurostimulation and novel pharmacological treatment. The metrics characterized in these mouse-models relevant to schizophrenia provide insight into the mechanisms contributing to cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, as well as new avenues for treatment.