title: Deficits in acquisition and extinction of conditioned responses in mGluR7 knockout mice.
abstract: Metabotropic glutamate receptor 7 (mGluR7) is expressed in brain regions implicated in emotional learning and working memory, and previous behavioral experiments indicated contributions of mGluR7 to various complex behaviors. In the present study, we investigated the specific effects of mGluR7 deletion on a variety of conditioning paradigms that model crucial neurocognitive and psychopathological behavioral phenomena. Null-mutant mGluR7(-/-) mice displayed defects during scheduled appetitive conditioning, acquisition and extinction of appetitive odor conditioning, extinction of response suppression-based conditioned emotional responding (CER), acquisition of discriminative CER, and contextual fear conditioning. mGluR7(-/-) animals were slower to acquire the association between a conditioned stimulus and a positive or negative reinforcer, but eventually reached similar performance levels to their wildtype littermates. Notably, extinction learning of conditioned responses was slower in mGluR7(-/-) compared to wildtype animals. The observed delays in the acquisition of complicated stimulus associations across conditioning procedures may suggest a critical role for mGluR7 in neurocognitive functions and psychopathology.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Biological Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, Tiensestraat 102, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Hannelore
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Goddyn
authors.forename: Zsuzsanna
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Callaerts-Vegh
authors.forename: Stijn
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stroobants
authors.forename: Trinette
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dirikx
authors.forename: Debora
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vansteenwegen
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hermans
authors.forename: Herman
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: van der Putten
authors.forename: Rudi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: D'Hooge
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D009812:Odorants; D018094:Receptors, Metabotropic Glutamate / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D018094:Receptors, Metabotropic Glutamate; C102719:metabotropic glutamate receptor 7