| First Author | Smith DR | Year | 1998 |
| Journal | Neuroscience | Volume | 86 |
| Issue | 1 | Pages | 135-46 |
| PubMed ID | 9692749 | Mgi Jnum | J:48769 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:1274984 | Doi | 10.1016/s0306-4522(97)00608-8 |
| Citation | Smith DR, et al. (1998) Behavioural assessment of mice lacking D1A dopamine receptors. Neuroscience 86(1):135-46 |
| abstractText | Dopamine D-1A receptor-deficient mice were assessed in a wide variety of tasks chosen to reflect the diverse roles of this receptor subtype in behavioural regulation. The protocol included examination of exploration and locomotor activity in an open field, a test of sensorimotor orienting, both place and cue learning in the Morris water maze, and assessment of simple associative learning in an olfactory discrimination task. Homozygous mice showed broad-based impairments that were characterized by deficiencies in initiating movement and/or reactivity to external stimuli. Data obtained from flash evoked potentials indicated that these deficits did not reflect gross visual impairments. The partial reduction in D-1A receptors in the heterozygous mice did not affect performance in most tasks, although circumscribed deficits in some tasks were observed (e.g., failure to develop a reliable spatial bias in the water maze). These findings extend previous behavioural studies of null mutant mice lacking D-1A receptors and provide additional support for the idea that the D-1A receptor participates in a wide variety of behavioural functions. The selective impairments of heterozygous mice in a spatial learning task suggest that the hippocampal/cortical dopaminergic system may be uniquely vulnerable to the partial loss of the D-1A receptor. (C) 1998 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. |
