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Borna again, starting from the beginning

Molecular Psychiatry volume 5, page 577 (2000)Cite this article

SIR – Recently, Molecular Psychiatry published an article discussing the issue of neutropic viruses in neuropsychiatry.1 We agree with the author of this article that neutrotropic viruses are an important, active and interesting area of study in neurodevelopmental injury research and appreciate the interest expressed in animal models of human psychiatric disease. However, some of the statements regarding the ‘new’ neonatal rat infection with the Borna disease virus (BDV) animal model were misleading for your readers, who may not be aware of almost two decades of previous publications in this model system and its previous application to human disease pathogenesis.

The editorial referred to the development of a ‘new’ animal model of human psychiatric disease by Hornig et al,2 citing a publication in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS), wherein the authors present data from studies of neonatally BDV-infected rats. Unfortunately, Dr Collier failed to note the extensive work in this model system previously published by other investigators prior to the PNAS article, many of which are cited in the PNAS article's bibliography. The work published by Hornig et al in PNAS provides some new data (eg, apoptosis) and further elaboration of many previously published features of this model system (eg, cerebellar deficits, hippocampal degeneration, and increased spontaneous locomotor activity). However, the data presented in PNAS follow the development of this model system by the work of multiple laboratories over the past 20 years.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, John Hopkins University School of Medicine, Ross 618, 720 Rutland Avenue, Baltimore, 21205, MD, USA

    K M Carbone & M V Pletnikov

  2. Laboratory of Pediatric and Respiratory Viral Diseases, DVP/OVRR/CBER/FDA, Bldg 29A, RM-2C-20, 8800 Rockville Pike, Bethseda, 28095, MD, USA

    K M Carbone & M V Pletnikov

  3. Department of Medicine, John Hopkins University School of Medicine, Ross 618, 720 Rutland Avenue, Baltimore, 21205, MD, USA

    K M Carbone

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  1. K M Carbone
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  2. M V Pletnikov
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Correspondence to K M Carbone.

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Carbone, K., Pletnikov, M. Borna again, starting from the beginning. Mol Psychiatry 5, 577 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.mp.4000810

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