Central dopamine hyperactivity in rats mimics abnormal acoustic startle response in schizophrenics

Schizophrenic patients show loss of the normal inhibition of the acoustic startle response (ASR) when the startle stimulus is preceded by a weak prepulse stimulus. In rats experimentally induced to have locally supersensitive dopamine receptors within forebrain dopamine terminal regions, we find a similar deficit in "prepulse inhibition" of the ASR. Our results suggest that there are intriguing parallels between the aberrant sensory gating of the ASR demonstrated by schizophrenics and that demonstrated by rats during stimulation of supersensitive brain dopamine receptors. Thus, prepulse inhibition of the ASR provides a useful paradigm for investigating the bridge between mesolimbic dopamine overactivity and the specific time-dependent information processing-sensory gating disturbances that have been identified in schizophrenic patients.