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Withdrawal from Sub-Chronic Ketamine Does Not Produce Psychotic-Like Behavior in C57BL/6N Mice

Zofia Harda, Klaudia Misiołek, Marta Klimczak, Magdalena Chrószcz, Jan Rodriguez Parkitna

preprint DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3926148 (opens in new tab)

Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Observational cohort
Population C57BL/6N mice
Intervention Ketamine
Dose 30 mg/kg, i.p., for 5 days
Duration 5-day treatment, 5-day withdrawal
Topics Esketamine Ketamine
Key findings Sub-chronic ketamine treatment (30 mg/kg for 5 days) did not induce social deficits or other behavioral alterations in C57BL/6N mice after five days of withdrawal, unlike previously reported effects in C57BL/6J mice, indicating sub-strain specific effects.

Abstract

Repeated administration of subanesthetic doses of ketamine is a model of psychosis-like state in rodents. In mice, this treatment produces a range of behavioral deficits, including impairment in social interactions and locomotion. To date, these phenotypes were described primarily in the Swiss and C3H/HeHsd mouse strains. A few studies investigated ketamine-induced behaviors in the C57BL/6J strain, but to our knowledge the C57BL/6N strain was not investigated thus far. This is surprising, as both C57BL/6 strains are widely used in behavioral and neuropsychopharmacological research, and are de facto standards for characterization of drug effects. The goal of this study was to determine if C57BL/6N mice are vulnerable to develop social deficits after five days withdrawal from sub-chronic ketamine treatment (5 days, 30 mg/kg, i.p.), an experimental schedule shown before to cause deficits in social interactions in C57BL/6J mice. Our results show that sub-chronic administration of ketamine that was reported to cause psychotic-like behavior in C57BL/6J mice does not induce appreciable behavioral alterations in C57BL/6N mice. Thus, we show that the effects of sub-chronic ketamine treatment in mice are sub-strain specific.