Impaired appetitively as well as aversively motivated behaviors and learning in PDE10A-deficient mice suggest a role for striatal signaling in evaluative salience attribution

• Published in: Neurobiology of learning and memory Vol. 95; no. 3; pp. 260 - 269
• Main Authors: Piccart, Elisabeth, Gantois, Ilse, Laeremans, Annelies, de Hoogt, Ronald, Meert, Theo, Vanhoof, Greet, Arckens, Lutgarde, D’Hooge, Rudi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01-03-2011; Elsevier; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Analysis of Variance; Animal behavior; Animal cognition; Animals; Appetitive; Appetitive Behavior - physiology; Association Learning - physiology; Avoidance Learning - physiology; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain; Conditioning; Conditioning, Operant - physiology; Discrimination (Psychology) - physiology; Early Growth Response Protein 1 - metabolism; Exploratory Behavior - physiology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gyrus Cinguli - metabolism; Gyrus Cinguli - physiology; Immediate early gene; Male; Maze Learning - physiology; Mice; Mice, Knockout; Morris water maze; Neostriatum - metabolism; Neostriatum - physiology; Neurobiology; Neurons; PDE10A; Phosphoric Diester Hydrolases - genetics; Phosphoric Diester Hydrolases - physiology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reward-motivated behavior; Rodents; Social Behavior; Statistics, Nonparametric; Striatum; zif268; Striatum; Appetitive; PDE10A; Morris water maze; Reward-motivated behavior; zif268; Conditioning; Immediate early gene; Central nervous system; Space perception; Encephalon; Signal transduction; Acquisition process; Motivation; Behavior; Rodentia; Basal ganglion; Corpus striatum; Attribution; Vertebrata; Mammalia; Mouse; Animal; EGR1 transcription factor; Reward; Perceptive learning
• ISSN: 1074-7427; 1095-9564
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2010.11.018

► PDE10A knockout mice show impaired appetitive and aversive conditioning. ► PDE10A knockout mice show spatial learning deficits in the Morris water maze. ► PDE10A depletion leads to increased zif268 expression in striatum and anterior cingulate cortex.
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.