Health
Mice that hear imaginary sounds may help explain people’s hallucinations
Techniques that induce fictitious sounds in both mice and humans may help scientists understand the brain circuits involved in schizophrenia and other disorders that cause hallucinations.
The technology seems to provide “a way to study psychotic disorders in animals,” he says. Adam Kepetches, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine.
It also shows how levels of the brain chemical dopamine determine the likelihood that mice and humans will perceive something that does not actually exist.Kepetch and the team report in this week’s journal Science..
Until now, scientists have had no good way to study exactly how hallucinations occur in the brain.
“This study is valuable because it allows us to delve into the details of cells, molecules, and physiology using mice,” he said. Elena Simpson, Researcher at NYS Psychiatric Institute.
It’s important because it can lead to better treatment of disorders like schizophrenia, says Simpson.
“We have medicines to treat hallucinations, but they are not very good,” she says. “They don’t work for everyone and there are many terrible side effects that prevent people from using them.”
The study was born because “mice don’t tell us that they’re hallucinating,” says Kepettis. So the team devised a system to detect that a mouse or person is recognizing something that doesn’t really exist.
“We basically set up a computer game, an audio game, that can actually measure hallucinatory events,” he says.
Players, whether rodent or human, needed to detect certain sounds that were mostly hidden by background noise. People clicked the button when they thought they could hear the sound, and the mouse moved their nose towards the expected reward.
In this type of test, the brain begins to expect to hear sound, says Kepetch. If you’re trying to hear your name in a noisy restaurant, that helps, he says.
“But if you overuse your expectations a little, you can suddenly imagine that your perception can really divorce from reality,” he says.
In the experiment, that’s what happened to both humans and mice. When they tried to hear the actual sound, both species were more likely to react to sounds that existed only in their minds.
The likelihood of a false reaction responding was closely related to the level of a substance in the brain called dopamine, says Kepetches. An increase in dopamine in a region called the striatum indicated that misperceptions were likely.
“What we believe is that baseline dopamine levels set the balance between incoming current sensory evidence, sound, and our previous expectations. That’s what Kepetch says.
If you have too much dopamine, your brain will start listening to what isn’t there.
It makes sense, as many studies, including those caused by schizophrenia, have found a link between dopamine levels and hallucinations, and drugs for schizophrenia by blocking the effects of dopamine. It is believed to work.
The success of the team to induce false perceptions is a better way to use mice to learn exactly what dopamine is doing in the brain and to test drugs aimed at preventing hallucinations. Seems to provide.
“And when you make a discovery there, you return to the patient,” says Simpson.
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