title: Impaired passive avoidance learning in mice lacking central neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors.
abstract: The nicotinic cholinergic system influences cognition, anxiety, locomotion, and addiction by acting upon nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs). To date, there are 12 known neuronal mammalian nAChR subunits leading to a rich pharmacological diversity that is difficult to attribute to specific subunits. We generated alpha7-beta2 nAChR double mutant mice by breeding to investigate the effect of a minimal number of nAChRs in the CNS. These mice have been used to determine the role these receptor subunits play in a variety of behaviors. A battery of behavioral tests was used to determine the effect of the mutation in anxiety, locomotor activity, startle response, pre-pulse inhibition, motor coordination and learning and memory. Mice lacking both the alpha7 and the beta2 nAChR subunits displayed impaired learning and memory performance in a passive avoidance test and showed enhanced motor performance on the rotarod.
authors.affiliation: Baylor College of Medicine, Department of Human and Molecular Genetics, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, TX 77030, USA. lmarubio@bcm.tmc.edu
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Marubio
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Paylor
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000235:genetics; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism*; D021122:Protein Subunits / Q000172:deficiency / Q000235:genetics; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011978:Receptors, Nicotinic / Q000172:deficiency* / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D012022:Reflex, Acoustic / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D021122:Protein Subunits; D011978:Receptors, Nicotinic