title: Serotonin transporter knockout rats show improved strategy set-shifting and reduced latent inhibition.
abstract: Behavioral flexibility is a cognitive process depending on prefrontal areas allowing adaptive responses to environmental changes. Serotonin transporter knockout (5-HTT(-/-)) rodents show improved reversal learning in addition to orbitofrontal cortex changes. Another form of behavioral flexibility, extradimensional strategy set-shifting (EDSS), heavily depends on the medial prefrontal cortex. This region shows functional changes in 5-HTT(-/-) rodents as well. Here we subjected 5-HTT(-/-) rats and their wild-type counterparts to an EDSS paradigm and a supplementary latent inhibition task. Results indicate that 5-HTT(-/-) rats also show improved EDSS, and indicate that reduced latent inhibition may contribute as an underlying mechanism.
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Centre for Neuroscience, Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, 6525 EZ, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Lourens J P
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Nonkes
authors.forename: Ilse I G M
authors.initials: II
authors.lastname: van de Vondervoort
authors.forename: Mark J C
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: de Leeuw
authors.forename: Linda P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Wijlaars
authors.forename: Joseph H R
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Maes
authors.forename: Judith R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Homberg
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D055786:Gene Knockout Techniques; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D050486:Serotonin Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D050486:Serotonin Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins