P.870Relationship between type of antipsychotic treatment and psychopathology in acute schizophrenia and schizoaffective patients

Much of what we know today about the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the development of the somatosensory cortex and patterning of the thalamocortical afferents comes from studies on the phenotypes of mice, in which a variety of genes have been altered using targeted mutations or other experimental means. Coupled with the recent advances in imaging of axons and dendrites in the cerebral cortex of living mice and rats, genetic loss of function and gain of function studies are likely to uncover many mysteries of the cortical development in general, and differentiation and patterning of the somatosensory cortex. This chapter provides an overview of the recent advances in mechanistic explanations of how the somatosensory cortex develops and the patterning of the thalamocortical axons which provide the primary sensory inputs from the sensory periphery via the dorsal column lemniscal and trigeminal pathways. Since the vast majority of the developmental studies use the mouse as a model, this species is the focus of the chapter.