Assessment of Walking Behaviors in Reln Deficient Mice

By

Julia Anne Puckett

ABSTRACT

The heterozygous reeler (+/rl) mouse, deficient in Reln, has been suggested for use as an animal model for schizophrenia. Post-mortem investigation of humans with schizophrenia have revealed Reln deficiency and brain abnormalities similar to those found in the +/rl mouse. The present study evaluated motor abnormalities using the bar walking task which evaluated walking skills and quality of foot placements using a categorical measuring system. Subjects consisted of 13 male mice (8 +/rl, 5 +/+). There was not a significant difference on the measures of total number of steps taken, percent of correct placements for front and rear feet, relative frequencies of error categories for front foot placements, total time to cross the runway, or false start rate. Genotypes did differ across foot error categories and total trials timed out. The +/rl mice made more errors on categories of higher severity and the +/+ mice timed out on significantly more trials. This task has revealed subtle differences between +/+ and +/rl mice that could have relevance to schizophrenia.