Sensitivity to the dopaminergic regulation of prepulse inhibition in rats: evidence for genetic, but not environmental determinants.

Prepulse inhibition (PPI), a measure of sensorimotor gating, is reduced in schizophrenia patients and in rats treated with dopamine (DA) agonists. Reported strain and supplier-based differences in sensitivity to PPI-disruptive effects of DA agonists presumably reflect the differential impact of genetics and/or environment on DAergic substrates regulating PPI. In 2000, Harlan Laboratories established a Texas Sprague-Dawley line (SDHt; facility 211) using breeders from Indianapolis (SDHi; facility 202A). SDHi rats had been used, approximately 11 years earlier, to establish a colony in San Diego (SDHsd; facility 235). SDHt and SDHi rats are thus genetically similar, but raised in distinct environments; approximately 11 years of genetic "drift" separates SDHsd rats from both SDHi and SDHt rats. Harlan Long-Evans hooded rats (LEH; Madison, WI; facility 207) are genetically distinct from albino SDH. All except SDHsd rats were shipped to our facility by air freight. We used SDHt, SDHi, SDHsd, and LEH rats to assess genetic and environmental contributions to the DAergic regulation of PPI. Acoustic startle/PPI were assessed in rats treated with the D1/D2 agonist apomorphine (APO), the D2 agonist quinpirole, or the D1 agonist SKF 82958. The relative sensitivities to the PPI-disruptive effects were: APO: SDHt=SDHsd=SDHi>>LEH; SKF 82958: SDHt=SDHsd=SDHi (LEH not sensitive); quinpirole: SDHt=SDHsd=SDHi; SDHi>LEH. Strain/supplier differences in sensitivity to drug effects on startle magnitude did not correspond to patterns of PPI sensitivity. In these rats, strain differences in the DAergic regulation of PPI are most easily explained by genetic, rather than environmental influences that differentially impact both D1 and D2 substrates. This finding is consistent with published reports in other strains. Pharmacogenetic studies of PPI in rats may identify a genetic basis for a model of deficient sensorimotor gating in schizophrenia.