There's a first time for everything: Exploring new topics in modeling schizophrenia

This week I had some questions and concerns about the papers. Both papers present  ideas that we have not previously encountered in our class discussions thus far. The Ayhan et al paper is the first paper that we have read that both utilized female animals and discussed sex differences in behavior and neuroanatomy. The Burrows et al paper is the first paper that we have read that not only presents a developmental model of schizophrenia, but proposed that an enriched environment might ameliorate schizophrenia related symptoms. 

I found it interesting and slightly confusing that in discussing differences between male and female mice, the Ayhan et al paper refers to these differences as "gender-differences." In other papers I have always seen these discussed as "sex differences." The difference in wording is subtle but was slightly off-putting since gender is a social construct. Because mice don't exist within a higher society, the idea of these differences being because of a socially constructed idea is inaccurate. However, it is probably just a simple mistake in semantics. 

I was also surprised at the way that the Ayhan et. al. paper presented their data. Although they claim to address sex differences, they never present data from male and female animals within the same graph. The only hint that they even completed their experiments in both sexes is hidden in the text. For example, when listing the results of the TST and FST they state that, "expression of mutant hDISC1 had no effects on these behaviors in male mice of either group (data not shown)." Despite the fact that they show that there are no differences between the male experimental groups, the paper still fails to actively compare them to the female groups. Without doing this, stating that there are significant sex differences seems like a bold statement. 

In regards to the Burrows et al paper I was pleasantly surprised to read a paper that proposed a solution that could temper the effects of an aggressive developmental model of schizophrenia. Although the model is by no means all-encompassing of every aspect of schizophrenia, the fact that there is some positive influence from an enriched environment makes me hopeful that there are some preventative measures parents can take in preventing schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. If an enriched environment can help reduce schizophrenia like symptoms in mice, I would be interested in knowing if there are studies in early education in humans and how it relates to schizophrenia later in life.