Animal models for brain research

Abstract

Animal models are important experimental tools in neuroscience research since they allow appraisal of selected and specific brain pathogenesis-related questions – often not easily accessible in human patients – in a temporal and spatial pattern. Translational research based on valid animal models may aid in alleviating some of the unmet needs in the current pharmaceutical market. Of primary concern to a neuroscience researcher is the selection of the most relevant animal model to achieve pursued research goals. Researchers are challenged to develop models that recapitulate the disorder in question, but are quite often confronted with the choice between models that reproduce cardinal pathological features of the disorders caused by mechanisms that may not necessarily occur in the patients versus models that are based on known aetiological mechanisms that may not reproduce all clinical features. Besides offering some general concepts concerning the relevance, validity and generalisation of animal models for brain disorders, this chapter focuses in detail on animal models of brain disease, in particular schizophrenia models as examples of animal models of psychiatric disorders and Alzheimer’s disease models as examples of animal models of neurological/neurodegenerative disorders.