Selective impairment of timing in a NMDA hypofunction animal model of psychosis

Schizophrenia is severe neuropsychiatric disease, which is commonly accompanied not only by positive or negative symptoms, but also by cognitive impairment. To study neuronal mechanisms underlying cognitive distortions and mechanisms underlying schizophrenia, animal pharmacological models of cognitive symptoms are commonly used. Between various cognitive impairments in schizophrenia patients, disturbed time perception has often been reported. Here, we examined temporal and spatial cognition in a modified Carousel maze task in the animal model of schizophrenia induced by non-competitive NMDA-receptor antagonists MK-801. Male Long-Evans rats (n = 18) first learned to avoid the aversive sector on a rotating arena in both dark and light intervals. We verified that during dark, rats used temporal cues, while during light they relied predominantly on spatial cues. We demonstrated that the timing strategy depends on the stable rotation speed of the arena and on the repositioning clues such as aversive stimuli. During testing (both in light and dark intervals), half of the rats received MK-801 and the control half received saline solution. We observed dose-dependent disruptions of both temporal and spatial cognition. Namely, both doses of MK-801 (0.1 and 0.12 mg/kg) significantly impaired timing strategy in the dark and increased locomotor activity. MK-801 dose 0.1 mg/kg, but not 0.12, also impaired spatial avoidance strategy in light. We found that the timing strategy is more sensitive to NMDA antagonist MK-801 than the spatial strategy. To conclude, a modified version of the Carousel maze is a useful and sensitive tool for detecting timing impairments in the MK-801 induced rodent model of schizophrenia.