Fig. 3. Subchronic antipsychotic actions on social interaction scores, firing activities, and basal dopamine release of epidermal growth factor model rats.

a Sniffing durations of EGF model rats (n = 23) which had subchronically received risperidone (1.0 mg/kg/day, i.p.) were compared with those of EGF model rats (n = 28) and control rats (n = 29) which had been treated with vehicle by Kruskal–Wallis followed by Steel post hoc test. b Following the social interaction test, these rats were anesthetized and subjected to in vivo extracellular single‐unit recordings from putative ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopaminergic neurons. The mean firing frequency of each cell is plotted. (n = 63 cells for control + vehicle, n = 72 cells for EGF + vehicle, n = 67 cells for EGF + risperidone) by Kruskal–Wallis followed by Steel post hoc test. c Effects of risperidone on basal dopamine concentrations in the prelimbic cortex of vehicle-treated control rats (n = 8), vehicle-treated EGF model rats (n = 7), and risperidone-treated EGF model rats (n = 8), were determined at the resting state. Prelimbic dopamine at the rat resting state was recovered with the lower flow rate for every 30 min and its concentrations were averaged over the 120 min period. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey post hoc test. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, and ***P < 0.001.