Exploration of the cortical pathophysiology underlying visual disturbances in schizophrenia comorbid with depressive disorder—An evidence from mouse model

INTRODUCTION: Patients with schizophrenia frequently present with visual disturbances including hallucination, and this symptom is particularly prevalent in individuals with comorbid depressive disorders. Currently, little is known about the neurobiological mechanisms of such psychiatric symptoms, and few explanations for the co‐occurrence of schizophrenia, depression, and visual disturbances are available. METHODS: In this study, we generated a mouse schizophrenia model in which depressive symptoms were also induced. We adopted in vivo two‐photon calcium imaging and ex vivo electrophysiological recording of the primary visual cortex to reveal the synaptic transmission and neural activity in the mouse schizophrenia model. RESULTS: In vivo two‐photon calcium imaging and ex vivo electrophysiological recording of the primary visual cortex revealed impaired synaptic transmission and abnormal neural activity in the schizophrenia model, but not in the depression model. These functional deficits were most prominent in the combined schizophrenia and depression model. CONCLUSION: Overall, our data support a mechanism by which the visual cortex plays a role in visual disturbances in schizophrenia.