Animal Model for Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and Schizophrenia

Neurodegenerative disorders pose a significant risk to the well-being of individuals. The incidence of age-related disorders is on the rise, partially attributed to the recent growth in the elderly demographic. Neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), Huntington’s disease (HD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal dementia, and spinocerebellar ataxias, are commonly observed in clinical practice. The pathophysiology of these diseases is heterogeneous, as some of them lead to cognitive and memory deficits, while others impact an individual’s respiratory, speech, and motor functions. There is a pressing need for efficacious treatments, which can only be achieved by comprehensively comprehending the aetiology and mechanisms underlying each ailment. Animal models are significant resources for assessing novel therapeutic approaches for treating human ailments and investigating the pathological mechanisms implicated in disease progression. Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous severe psychiatric mental illness with a devastating effect on patients and their caretakers and imposes enormous costs on healthcare systems. The aetiology of schizophrenia is still poorly understood and the biochemical focus has been on antipsychotic drugs that mitigate the symptoms of schizophrenia, the response rate to these drugs is lower than desired; they are slow-acting and produce serious adverse side effects. Preclinical models allow more rapid monitoring of disease progression than is possible in humans, permit invasive studies of structural and molecular changes across the development of the disorder, and identify new drug targets to provide more effective treatment in the future. This chapter discusses in detail the significance of animal models pertaining to Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and schizophrenia.