Do antipsychotics affect white matter? (360G-Wellcome-211837_Z_18_Z)

Converging evidence from post-mortem studies of human brain tissue and in vivo neuroimaging suggest that white matter integrity is negatively affected across several psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia. Antipsychotics are the first-line treatment for but a key gap in our knowledge is the precise impact of these drugs on white matter integrity and pathology. Recent evidence suggests that antipsychotic drugs may be pro-myelinating. We aim to address this question using a rodent model of Maternal Immune Activation (MIA), an established epidemiological risk factor for several psychiatric disorders. Our goal is to determine the effect of chronic exposure to the antipsychotic haloperidol on white matter integrity in the MIA model. Existing tissue samples from animals treated in four experimental conditions (Saline – vehicle, Saline –Haloperidol, MIA-vehicle, MIA- Haloperidol) will be stained for myelin basic protein and neurofilament to assess the effects of MIA, haloperidol and their interaction, on white matter. We expect that the MIA model will exhibit a loss of white matter integrity and hypothesize that haloperidol will rescue this. This research may increase understanding of the development and treatment of psychopathology, both of which are poorly understood and affect millions of people around the world.