Impaired learning-dependent cortical plasticity in Huntington's disease transgenic mice.
Huntington's disease (HD) is a genetically transmitted neurodegenerative disorder. The neuropathology in HD is a selective neuronal cell death in several brain regions including cortex. Although changes in synaptic plasticity were shown within the hippocampus and striatum of HD transgenic mice, there are no studies considering neocortical synaptic plasticity abnormalities in HD. We examined the impact of the HD transgene upon learning-dependent plasticity of cortical representational maps. The effect of associative learning, in which stimulation of a row of vibrissae was paired with appetitive stimulus, upon functional representations of vibrissae in the barrel cortex, was investigated with 2-deoxyglucose brain mapping in presymptomatic R6/1 HD mice. In wild-type mice, cortical representation of the row of vibrissae involved in the training was expanded, while in HD mice the representation of this row was not expanded. The results suggest that presymptomatic R6/1 HD transgenic mice show deficits in plasticity of primary somatosensory cortex.
Cybulska-Klosowicz
Anita
A
Laboratory of Neuroplasticity, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, 02-093, Warsaw, Poland.
Mazarakis
Nektarios K
NK
Van Dellen
Anton
A
Blakemore
Colin
C
Hannan
Anthony J
AJ
Kossut
Malgorzata
M
D000818:Animals; D001345:Autoradiography; D001692:Biological Transport; D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D003433:Crosses, Genetic; D003847:Deoxyglucose / Q000493:pharmacokinetics; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006801:Humans; D000071058:Huntingtin Protein; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D008811:Mice, Inbred DBA; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D009043:Motor Activity; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D009687:Nuclear Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D014110:Touch; D014738:Vibrissae / Q000473:pathology
D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes; C086055:HTT protein, human; C506812:Htt protein, mouse; D000071058:Huntingtin Protein; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D003847:Deoxyglucose