Schizophrenia, a chronic debilitating brain disorder, affects about 1% of the
world’s population and is one of the most complex diseases in psychiatry. Despite
intensive research, the molecular etiology and pathophysiology of the disease remain
ambiguous and limited. Modeling aspects of schizophrenia in animals is critical for
understanding the pathophysiology of the disease and may play a pivotal role in the
development of novel treatments. This chapter aims to review various animal and invitro
models relevant to schizophrenia and discuss various aspects to comprehend the
pathophysiology, mimic the symptoms and utility in novel target identification and
development. The clinical symptoms of schizophrenia are broadly classified as
positive, negative, and cognitive, with the current treatments focusing mainly on
positive symptoms and a limited focus on negative and cognitive symptoms. We
further focus on the models to evaluate various cognitive deficits associated with
schizophrenia which tend to be long-lasting, like working memory, visual memory,
attention, and social cognition.
Keywords: Animal models, Genetic model, In-vitro model, Lesion model, MAM
model, Pharmacological model, Post-weaning social isolation model,
Schizophrenia.
