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Updated: Sep 27, 2026
Habituation and Prepulse Inhibition of Acoustic Startle in Rodents
Published on: September 1, 2011
Effect of treatment status on prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle in schizophrenia
Erica J Duncan1, Sandor Szilagyi, Toby R Efferen
1Mental Health Service/116A, Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 1670 Clairmont Road, Decatur, GA 30033, USA. erica.duncan2@med.va.gov
Rationale:
The acoustic startle response is inhibited when the startling stimulus is preceded by a weaker non-startling acoustic stimulus. This phenomenon, termed prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle (PPI), is impaired in schizophrenics compared to normal controls. To date, there is conflicting evidence regarding whether PPI impairments improve with antipsychotic treatment.
Objectives:
To examine the effect of medication status on PPI in schizophrenic subjects.
Methods:
First, we performed acoustic startle testing on 16 schizophrenic subjects when they were acutely decompensated off medication and later after they were stabilized on antipsychotic treatment. Second, in a between-group design, we tested 21 schizophrenic subjects off medication, 16 subjects on atypical neuroleptics, and 27 subjects on typical neuroleptics.
Results:
In both the test-retest study and the between-group study, ANOVAs revealed no significant changes in startle to pulse alone stimuli, habituation of startle to pulse alone stimuli, PPI, latency to response onset, or latency to response peak between the treatment conditions.
Conclusions:
Our results do not support the hypothesis that impaired sensorimotor gating in schizophrenia improves with antipsychotic treatment. Rather, impaired gating persists despite symptomatic improvement on medication.
