Cellular Adaptations to Neuroleptic Treatment in the Dorsal Striatum

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Schizophrenia affects 1% of the population worldwide; neuroleptic (antipsychotic) medications are essential for treatment despite an incomplete understanding of the mechanisms through which palliative symptomatic remediation is exerted. Though different in the degree of antagonism for the dopamine 2 receptor (D2R) and extradopaminergic effects, both 'typical1 neuroleptics (e.g. haloperidol) and 'atypical1 neuroleptics such as clozapine are effective at long-term remodeling of the corticostriatal synapse, a primary site of disease pathophysiology and pharmacotherapeutic activity as demonstrated by in vivo imaging and postmortem tissue analyses. Previous study has been impeded by an inability to experimentally separate a heterogeneous cell population in the striatum, and by inadequate resolution from the soma of dendritic processes. BAG transgenic mice expressing eGFP under the dopamine 1 receptor (D1R) and D2R promoters will be used to distinguish dichotomous principal neuron populations in the striatum, in combination with 2-photon laser scanning microscopy (2PLSM) to gain insight into dendritic function. As adaptations to chronic neuroleptic administration may be different in normal versus diseased states, an RGS4 knockout mouse will be employed as a schizophrenic-like model in parallel to wildtype strains; RGS4 has been implicated as both a schizophrenia susceptibility gene in cases of demonstrable hereditary transmission and a gene sensitive to altered dopamine transmission in the striatum of Parkinsonian animal models. In summary, this proposal aims to characterize the compound effect by which pharmacotherapeutic improvement in clinical symptomatology is effected. Whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology, combined with molecular transgenic, pharmacologic, and 2-photon imaging modalities will be used to study the remodeling of neuronal subpopulations in the dorsal striatum of wildtype and RGS4 knockout mice following subchronic typical (i.e. haloperidol) and atypical (i.e. clozapine) neuroleptic administration. Specific Aim 1 will examine the intrinsic, morphologic, and dendritic properties of medium spiny neurons of the dorsal striatum. To assess functional connectivity between prefrontal cortical and striatal neurons, Specific Aim 2 will target presynaptic and postsynaptic adjustments in the corticostriatal synapse.