Impact of NMDAR ablation in dorsomedial striatum on behavior.

COLL C; MURER MG; BELFORTE J; AVALE E; BRAZ BY

Mar del Plata

Congreso; XXXII Congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2017

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

Goal directed behavior and habit formation depend on corticostriatal circuit operation. It isassumed that alterations in these circuits are related to neuropsychiatric conditions likeobsessive compulsive disorder, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder and Tourettesyndrome. In a previous study we found a decrease in prefrontostriatal connectivity in micewith neonatal dopamine (DA) depletion that emerge in parallel with deficits in exploration ofnovel environments, social behavior and exploitation of nutritional resources and shelter.Here we specifically study whether a decrease in prefrontostriatal connectivity in adult micecould be related to some behavioral features observed in DA depleted mice. Since blockadeof NMDA receptor (NMDAR) decreases the response of striatal neurons to cortical inputs, tomimic a prefrontostriatal disconnection we have ablated the NMDAR in dorsomedial striatumby injecting a GAD-Cre virus in loxP-flanked NR1 adult mice. Preliminar results show thatNMDAR ablation produces a decrease in exploration in a task dependent manner. Thisreduction seems not to be due to a general decrease in locomotion because in some settingswe did not observed differences. Mice with NMDAR ablation also showed deficits in nestingand marble burying behavior but not in social exploration. In summary, NMDAR ablation indorsomedial striatum produced deficits in exploration but does not fully reproduce thebehavioral phenotype of DA depleted mice.