Abstract
Psychosis represents a set of symptoms against which current available treatments are not universally effective and are often accompanied by adverse side effects. Clinical management could potentially be improved with a greater understanding of the underlying biology and subsequently with the introduction of novel treatments. Since many clinical drug candidates are identified through in vivo modelling, a deeper understanding of the pre‐clinical field, might help us understand why translation of results from animal models to inform mental health clinical practice has so far been weak. We set out to give a shallow, but broad unbiased overview of experiments looking at the in vivo modelling of psychotic disorders using a systematic review and meta‐analysis. This protocol describes the exact methodology we propose to follow in order to quantitatively review both studies characterizing a model and those experiments that investigate the effects of novel therapeutic options. We are interested in assessing the prevalence of the reporting of measures to reduce risk of bias, and the internal and external validity of the animal models and outcome measures used to validate these models. This generation of strong empirical evidence has the potential to identify areas for improvement, make suggestions for future research avenues, and ultimately inform what we think we know to improve the current attrition rate between bench and bedside in psychosis research. A review like this will also support the reduction of animal numbers used in research and the refinement of experiments to maximize their value in informing the field.
Highlights
A mental disorder is defined as “any disorder or disability of the mind” by The Mental Health Act 2007 for England and Wales[2] and as “mental illness, learning disability or personality disorder caused or manifested” by the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003.3 The definition in legal terms is very wide.Clinically, this is the case when considering international classifications of mental disorders.[4,5] Results from scientific literature databases such as PubMed reveal that mental disorders at the cognitive–emotional interface have received considerable and increasing attention in the field of research over the last decade
Psychotic mental disorders represent a severe category of these mental disorders that, in England, have an overall incidence rate of about 32 per 100 000 person-years.[6]
Our aim is to improve our understanding of the role that animal models play in the drug discovery process of psychotic disorders and their validity by providing an unbiased summary of the field
Summary
A mental disorder is defined as “any disorder or disability of the mind” by The Mental Health Act 2007 for England and Wales[2] and as “mental illness, learning disability or personality disorder caused or manifested” by the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003.3 The definition in legal terms is very wide. This is the case when considering international classifications of mental disorders.[4,5] Results from scientific literature databases such as PubMed reveal that mental disorders at the cognitive–emotional interface have received considerable and increasing attention in the field of research over the last decade. Incidence rates among the English population are the highest for non-affective psychoses (23 per 100 000 person-years), with schizophrenia accounting for about 15 per 100 000 person-years.[6]
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