CNTRICS final animal model task selection: control of attention.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry

Background:

• Schizophrenia is characterized by attention deficits.
• Top-down control of attention is crucial for cognitive function in schizophrenia.
• The Cognitive Neuroscience Treatment Research to Improve Cognition in Schizophrenia (CNTRICS) initiative highlights attention as a key research area.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the status of three rodent attention tasks with high construct validity for schizophrenia research.
• To assess the utility of these tasks for understanding neural substrates, neuropharmacological manipulations, and genetic influences.
• To evaluate their potential for developing parallel human tasks and advancing drug development.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing data on three specific rodent tasks: 5-choice serial reaction time task, 5-choice continuous performance task, and distractor condition sustained attention task.
• Analysis of evidence regarding neural substrates, neuropharmacological sensitivity, and genetic influences.
• Examination of data from animal models of schizophrenia's cognitive deficits.

Main Results:

• The three reviewed tasks demonstrate construct validity for modeling attention deficits in schizophrenia.
• These tasks provide insights into neural mechanisms and are sensitive to pharmacological and genetic factors.
• Parallel human tasks are being developed to bridge findings between animal models and human studies.

Conclusions:

• The reviewed rodent attention tasks are valuable tools for schizophrenia research.
• Further development of these tasks and their human parallels can enhance understanding of cognitive deficits and facilitate drug discovery.
• Recommendations are provided for improving testing to better reflect the complexity of schizophrenia.