Abstract
The pathophysiology of schizophrenia (SZ) remains unknown despite the progress of neuroscience, which has hindered the invention of radical treatment of SZ. Various lines of evidence, including human genetics, suggest that the abnormality of synapses is involved in its pathophysiology, but none of them indicates its direct causality. The utility of model animal can be a plausible surrogate for the human disease, allowing researchers to pursue invasive and manipulative experiments. Therefore, we overview the evidence of synaptic pathology in the schizophrenia model animals. Furthermore, we introduce our new optical technique to visualize and manipulate synapses, which enables us to provide direct evidence of the involvement of synapses in the disease.
