SYMPOSIA

Abstracts of the Invited Speakers
Genetic models in anxiety disorders
Nurper Erberk Özen
Department of Psychiatry, Ufuk University, Ankara, Turkey
E-mail: nerberk@superonline.com
Animal models are key to our understanding of many human diseases and psychiatric disorders are no exception. Animal models have
provided insight into the neurotransmitter systems and brain circuitry underlying psychiatric illnesses that have enabled the screening
of potential psychiatric medications for efficacy and guided the search for new pharmacotherapies. However, modeling complex
psychiatric disorders in animals presents distinct challenges. Modeling psychiatric disorders in animals is difficult due to the complexity
of human thoughts, emotions, and behavior; the heterogeneity of many psychiatric disorders; and the requirement of self-reporting of
internal state for diagnosis. According to the DSM-IV, most psychiatric diagnoses are made when a patient displays a certain number of
diagnostic criteria. However, patients with the same diagnosis can differ significantly in specific symptoms, perhaps implying differences
in the underlying etiology of their disorders and explaining the heterogeneity of response to pharmacotherapy. Many symptoms are
identified by the patient’s report of internal state (e.g., obsessive obtrusive thoughts or ruminations). This leads to questions of how we
can best model disorders in animals that are, by definition, both heterogeneous and dependent on report of internal state. Rather than
attempting to model a psychiatric disorder in its entirety, most neuroscientists focus on individual aspects or dimensions of a disorder
and use physical manifestations and measurable behaviors when modeling a particular aspect.
Inferences from experiments with animal models have the potential to impact clinical practice; therefore, stringently validating such
models is of utmost importance. The strengths and weaknesses of a model can be conceptualized with different types of validity.
Three important types of validity are suggested as predictive, face, and construct validity. In the first one, the animal should display
reduced anxiety when treated with anxiolytics (predictive validity). In the second type, the behavioral response of an animal model to
a threatening stimulus should be comparable to the response known for humans (face validity). Finally, in the third type of validity, the
mechanisms underlying anxiety as well as the psychological causes should be identical (construct validity). In the meantime there is no
consensus about which type of validity is superior. Some authors argue that predictive validity is most essential but the others suggest
that constructive validity is the most crucial. On the other hand, these three requirements are difficult to achieve in any animal model for
each anxiety disorder. Moreover, in the related literature, the term“animal model of anxiety” is used for animals that are altered in their
anxiety-related behavior, as well as for test assays conceptualized to assess anxiety-related behavior in animals.
Key words: Anxiety disorders, genetic, rat, transgenic
Bulletin of Clinical Psychopharmacology 2011;21(Suppl. 2):S68
Anxiety models in experimental animals
Hüseyin Günay
Etimesgut Military Hospital, Psychiatry Clinic, Ankara, Turkey
E-mail: huseyingunaydr@yahoo.com
The basic measure in testing validity of an animal model is its prediction validity, which means making true assumptions for a disorder
in humans. The necessary features of an animal model are analogy to a disorder in humans, objective testing, effective interventions in
humans and the capability of retesting. Structural validity is the capability to retest of the target condition and first sight validity is the
measurement of phenomenological similarity. First sight validity points to the surface similarity between the model and the disease and
structural validity points to the underlying mechanisms. Anxiety models are mainly used in understanding causes and mechanisms and
also determining drug effects. Anxiety in animals, which is similar to humans, can be developed with different environmental conditions.
These situations can help to understand and intervene to treat anxiety. Three ways are used in the development of anxiety models: using
a new environment, reward and punishment applications, and punishment procedures.
Anxiety models using new environment:
These are the methods for establishing and evaluating anxiety models in a new environment, such as elevated plus maze and derivers,
elevated T-maze, open field, staircase test, social isolation, novelty suppressed feeding, social interaction, holeboard, predatory odor,
operant conflict tests for reward-punishment applications and experiments with punishment procedures such as defensive burying,
passive avoidance, foot shock, hot plate and four plate tests.
S68 Bulletin of Clinical Psychopharmacology, Vol: 21, Supplement: 2, 2011 - www.psikofarmakoloji.org