Chunxia Li1, Zhihao Li2, Xiaoping Hu2, Jocelyne Bachevalier3, Xiaodong Zhang1, 4
1Yerkes Imaging Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States; 2Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States; 3Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States; 4Division of Neuropharmacology and Neurologic Disease, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University , Atlanta, GA, United States
Macaques with neonatal hippocampal lesions showed hippocampal-dependent and prefrontal-dependent memory deficits similar to those reported in schizophrenic patients and are thus an ideal animal model to study the mechanism of the abnormal functional connectivity reported in schizophrenia. In this study, rhesus monkeys with neonatal hippocampal lesions were used to investigate the functional connectivity between the hippocampus (HP) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) with the resting-state functional MRI technique. The results showed weaker functional connectivity between left HP and left DLPFC in animals with neonatal HP lesions, and the degree of abnormal connectivity was significantly correlated with volume of HP lesion.