Csomor

Fakultäten » Medizinische Fakultät » Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik » Affektive Erkrankungen und Allgemeinpsychiatrie Zürich Ost, Klinik für » Prof. Dr. Daniel Hell (emeritiert) » Csomor

Completed research project

Title / Titel	The influence of baseline startle reactivity on the indexation of prepulse inhibition
PDF	Abstract (PDF, 14 KB)
Summary / Zusammenfassung	Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of the startle reflex refers to the reduction of the reflexive startle response to an intense pulse stimulus when its presentation is shortly preceded by a weak prepulse stimulus. Although a part of the literature is based on the assumption that PPI is independent of the baseline startle reaction, there is accumulating evidence which argues against such an independency. We systematically investigated whether PPI indexed as percentage or difference score is dependent on the magnitude of baseline startle reactivity in healthy human volunteers and in C57BL/6 mice. The results revealed that both indexations of PPI were affected by the magnitude of the baseline startle and we highlight the pitfalls of different methods to index PPI, especially when startle reactivity differs considerably between groups under comparison.
Keywords / Suchbegriffe	prepulse inhibition, baseline startle, sensorimotor gating, human, mice
Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte	Dr. Philipp Csomor, PhD (Project Leader) csomor@bli.uzh.ch Prof. Franz Vollenweider   Dr. Boris Quednow, PhD
Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch	Foundation
In collaboration with / In Zusammenarbeit mit	Dr. Benjamin Yee & Prof. Joram Feldon, Laboratory of Behavioural Neurobiology, ETH Zurich Switzerland
Duration of Project / Projektdauer	Jun 2007 to May 2008