Abstract
Developmental environment is one of important factors to consider about the cause of mental illness, as well as genome and stress related with onset of illness. To clarify the abnormality of neuronal circuits which underlie on the pathophysiology caused by poor developmental environment, we focus on the influence of social isolation during development on brain development. We investigated electrical activity of neuron in medial prefrontal cortex of mouse socially isolated during development and showed that social isolation lower the excitatory synaptic input and increase the inhibitory synaptic input on specific type of pyramidal cell in layer 5 of medial prefrontal cortex, which result in the lower excitability of the pyramidal cell under the imbalance of excitation / inhibition. In the future, we would focus on the function of the specific pyramidal cell in the whole brain and deeply understand the mechanism of abnormal development of brain by social isolation.
