Orexin deficiency affects sensorimotor gating and its amphetamine-induced impairment

The orexin neuropeptides have an important role in the regulation of the sleep/wake cycle and foraging, as well as in reward processing and emotions. Furthermore, recent research implicates the orexin system in different behavioral endophenotypes of neuropsychiatric diseases such as social avoidance and cognitive flexibility. Utilizing orexin-deficient mice, the present study tested the hypothesis that orexin is involved in two further mouse behavioral endophenotypes of neuropsychiatric disorders, i.e., sensorimotor gating and amphetamine sensitivity. The data revealed that orexin-deficient mice expressed a deficit in sensorimotor gating, measured by prepulse inhibition of the startle response. Amphetamine treatment impaired prepulse inhibition in wildtype and heterozygous orexin-deficient mice, but had no effects in homozygous orexin-deficient mice. Furthermore, locomotor activity and center time in the open field was not affected by orexin deficiency but was similarly increased or decreased, respectively, by amphetamine treatment in all genotypes. These data indicate that the orexin system modulates prepulse inhibition and is involved in mediating amphetamine's effect on prepulse inhibition. Future studies should investigate whether pharmacological manipulations of the orexin system can be used to treat neuropsychiatric diseases associated with deficits in sensorimotor gating, such as schizophrenia or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.