Cortico-striatal synaptic defects and compulsive motor behaviors in mice

描述（由申请人提供）：动物模型是研究人类疾病机制和测试新疗法的重要工具。我们已经确定了小鼠在突触后密度（PSD）的关键支架成分缺失后的强迫性梳理障碍。小鼠这种行为的发病机制可能与强迫症（OCD）中类似于人类焦虑症的障碍有关。这种小鼠模型现在为我们研究从基因到突触功能到回路到行为的发病机制提供了机会。提出的实验将通过描述PSD成分的缺失如何改变突触后组成、突触传递和皮质纹状体回路来开始建立这些联系。我们进一步提出修复实验，以恢复皮质纹状体突触的突触功能，并最终确定足以恢复动物正常行为的关键电路。总之，这些实验结果将促进我们对皮质纹状体突触突触后组装和突触传递的理解。这些基础对于指导未来治疗人类强迫症样疾病和其他由基底神经节突触传递异常引起的实体至关重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Animal models are an important tool for studying human disease mechanisms and testing new therapies. We have identified a compulsive grooming disorder in mice following deletion of a key scaffolding component of the post-synaptic density (PSD). The pathogenesis of this behavior in mice may relate to disorders in the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)-like spectrum of anxiety disorders in humans. This mouse model now affords us an opportunity to study pathogenesis from gene to synaptic function to circuit to behavior. The experiments proposed will begin to establish these links by delineating how the loss of this PSD component alters post-synaptic composition, synaptic transmission, and cortico-striatal circuitry. We further propose rescue experiments to restore synaptic function at cortico-striatal synapses and eventually to determine the critical circuitry sufficient to restore normal behavior to the animal. In sum, the results of these experiments will advance our understanding of post-synaptic assembly and synaptic transmission at cortico- striatal synapses. These underpinnings are critical to direct future therapies in humans for OCD-like disorders and other entities arising from abnormal basal ganglia synaptic transmission.