The DVD adult rat is also more sensitive to haloperidol, a dopamine D2 receptor antagonist, that is a widely used antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia. Dysfunction of DA signalling has been strongly implicated in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Dopamine projections involve a range of cortical and subcortical regions, however its role in the nucleus accumbens has been of particular interest with respect to neuropsychiatric disorders. In the nucleus accumbens, dopamine influences the integration of inputs from the ventral hippocampus, the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex. Grace and colleagues have suggested that dopamine may modulate a range of limbic and cortical functions relevant to the pathophysiology of schizophrenia via the nucleus accumbens. Previously we explored the genomic and proteomic characteristics of frontal cortex and the hippocampus in the adult DVD rat. In particular, a proteomic study based on two cortical regions of DVD-deficient rats, identified 36 dysregulated proteins. These proteins are associated with several biological pathways including oxidative phosphorylation, cytoskeleton maintenance, calcium homeostasis, chaperoning, synaptic plasticity and neurotransmission. A computational analysis of these data revealed that many of the proteins dysregulated in the DVD model have also been shown to be altered in schizophrenia post-mortem brain studies. In order to further explore the impact of DVD on brain function, we undertook a proteomic study of the nucleus accumbens. Developmental vitamin D deficiency is associated with a subtle alteration in the expression of protein involved in functions related to calcium binding proteins, and mitochondrial functioning. Calcium binding proteins have been of interest to schizophrenia research for some time, in particular with respect to the expression in cortical GABAergic interneurons. This study found that four calcium binding proteins were significantly altered in the nucleus accumbens of the adult DVD-deficient rat.Calcium binding proteins are central to a wide range of cellular functions, of which calcium sequestration and buffering are particularly important for neurons.