Author:

Keywords:

Science & Technology, Social Sciences, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Behavioral Sciences, Neurosciences, Psychology, Psychology, Multidisciplinary, Neurosciences & Neurology, PDE10A, Striatum, Immediate early gene, zif268, Morris water maze, Appetitive, Conditioning, Reward-motivated behavior, WATER-MAZE, IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL LOCALIZATION, PHOSPHODIESTERASE 10A, CORTICAL INPUTS, DOPAMINE, REWARD, CORTEX, REINFORCEMENT, EXPRESSION, Analysis of Variance, Animals, Appetitive Behavior, Association Learning, Avoidance Learning, Conditioning, Operant, Discrimination, Psychological, Early Growth Response Protein 1, Exploratory Behavior, Gyrus Cinguli, Male, Maze Learning, Mice, Mice, Knockout, Neostriatum, Phosphoric Diester Hydrolases, Social Behavior, Statistics, Nonparametric, 11 Medical and Health Sciences, 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology, 5202 Biological psychology, 5204 Cognitive and computational psychology

Abstract:

Phosphodiesterase 10A (PDE10A) hydrolyzes both cAMP and cGMP, and is a key element in the regulation of medium spiny neuron (MSN) activity in the striatum. In the present report, we investigated the effects of targeted disruption of PDE10A on spatial learning and memory as well as aversive and appetitive conditioning in C57BL/6J mice. Because of its putative role in motivational processes and reward learning, we also determined the expression of the immediate early gene zif268 in striatum and anterior cingulate cortex. Animals showed decreased response rates in scheduled appetitive operant conditioning, as well as impaired aversive conditioning in a passive avoidance task. Morris water maze performance revealed not-motor related spatial learning and memory deficits. Anxiety and social explorative behavior was not affected in PDE10A-deficient mice. Expression of zif268 was increased in striatum and anterior cingulate cortex, which suggests alterations in the neural connections between striatum and anterior cingulate cortex in PDE10A-deficient mice. The changes in behavior and plasticity in these PDE10A-deficient mice were in accordance with the proposed role of striatal MSNs and corticostriatal connections in evaluative salience attribution.