Neonatal administration of phencyclidine decreases the number of putative inhibitory interneurons and increases neural excitability to auditory paired clicks in the hippocampal CA3 region of freely moving adult mice.

Animals exposed to phencyclidine (PCP) during the neonatal period have fewer GABAergic interneurons in the corticolimbic area, including the hippocampus, and exhibit abnormal behaviors after attaining maturation that correspond with schizophrenic symptoms. Since a lack of inhibitory interneurons in the hippocampus has also been reported in postmortem studies of patients with schizophrenia, the deficit may induce abnormal activity of hippocampal neurons that underlies pathological states in schizophrenia. However, it remains unclear how PCP treatment during the neonatal period affects the discharge activity of hippocampal neurons in adulthood. In the current study, single unit responses of hippocampal CA3 neurons to paired auditory clicks were recorded in freely moving mice repeatedly injected with PCP or saline during the neonatal period. The recorded neurons were classified into two subpopulations, narrow-spike neurons and broad-spike neurons, based on the spike width. The spontaneous discharge rate was higher in the narrow-spike neurons than in the broad-spike neurons, indicating that the narrow-spike neurons correspond with hippocampal inhibitory neurons. The proportion of narrow-spike neurons was significantly smaller in neonatally PCP-treated mice than in saline-treated mice. The broad-spike neurons that exhibited a response magnitude to the second click as large as that to the first click (E/E-type response) showed longer response duration to the paired clicks in PCP-treated mice than in the saline-treated mice. Further, the number of neurons with E/E-type response was higher in the PCP-treated mice than in the saline-treated mice. Finally, the attenuation of an auditory-evoked potential component, N40, to the second click (sensory gating) was blunted in the PCP-treated mice when compared with that in the saline-treated mice. These results suggest that the neonatal administration of PCP induced a deficit of inhibitory interneurons and altered discharge activity of neurons in the hippocampal CA3 region to the paired clicks, thereby inducing the deficit in sensory gating.