Cocaine addiction is characterized by an impaired ability to develop adaptive behaviors that can compete with cocaine seeking, implying a deficit in the ability to induce plasticity in cortico-accumbens circuitry critical for regulating motivated behavior. RWe found that rats withdrawn from cocaine self-administration had a marked in vivo deficit in the ability to develop long-term potentation (LTP) and depression (LTD) in the nucleus accumbens core subregion following stimulation of prefrontal cortex. N-acetylcysteine treatment prevents relapse in animal models and craving in humans by activating cystine-glutamate exchange and thereby stimulating extrasynaptic metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR). N-acetylcysteine treatment restored the ability to induce LTP and LTD by indirectly stimulating mGluR2/3 and mGluR5, respectively. Cocaine self-administration induces metaplasticity that inhibits the further induction of synaptic plasticity, and this impairment can be reversed by N-acetylcysteine, a drug that also prevents relapse.

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In vivo extracellular recording studies have traditionally shown that dopamine (DA) transiently inhibits prefrontal cortex (PFC) neurons, yet recent biophysical measurements in vitro indicate that DA enhances the evoked excitability of PFC neurons for prolonged periods. Moreover, although DA neurons apparently encode stimulus salience by transient alterations in firing, the temporal properties of the PFC DA signal associated with various behaviors is often extraordinarily prolonged. The present study used in vivo electrophysiological and electrochemical measures to show that the mesocortical system produces a fast non-DA-mediated postsynaptic response in the PFC that appears to be initiated by glutamate. In contrast, short burst stimulation of mesocortical DA neurons that produced transient (Ͻ4 s) DA release in the PFC caused a simultaneous reduction in spontaneous firing (consistent with extracellular in vivo recordings) and a form of DA-induced potentiation in which evoked firing was increased for tens of minutes (consistent with in vitro measurements). We suggest that the mesocortical system might transmit fast signals about reward or salience via corelease of glutamate, whereas the simultaneous prolonged DA-mediated modulation of firing biases the long-term processing dynamics of PFC networks.

One of the primary outputs of the nucleus accumbens is directed to the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus (MD) via its projections to the ventral pallidum (VP), with the core and shell regions of the accumbens projecting to the lateral and medial aspects of the VP, respectively. In this study, the multisynaptic organization of nucleus accumbens projections was assessed using intracerebral injections of an attenuated strain of pseudorabies virus, a neurotropic ␣ herpesvirus that replicates in synaptically linked neurons. Injection of pseudorabies virus into different regions of the MD or reticular thalamic nucleus (RTN) produced retrograde transynaptic infections that revealed multisynaptic interactions between these areas and the basal forebrain. Immunohistochemical localization of viral antigen at short postinoculation intervals confirmed that the medial MD (m-MD) receives direct projections from the medial VP, rostral RTN, and other regions previously shown to project to this region of the thalamus. At longer survival intervals, injections confined to the m-MD resulted in transynaptic infection of neurons in the accumbens shell but not in the core. Injections that also included the central segment of the MD produced retrograde infection of neurons in the lateral VP and the polymorph (pallidal) region of the olfactory tubercle (OT) and transynaptic infection of a small number of neurons in the rostral accumbens core. Injections in the lateral MD resulted in retrograde infection in the globus pallidus (GP) and in transynaptic infection in the caudateputamen. Viral injections into the rostroventral pole of the RTN infected neurons in the medial and lateral VP and at longer postinoculation intervals, led to transynaptic infection of scattered neurons in the shell and core. Injection of virus into the intermediate RTN resulted in infection of medial VP neurons and second-order infection of neurons in the accumbens shell. Injections in the caudal RTN or the lateral MD resulted in direct retrograde labeling of cells within the GP and transynaptic infection of neurons in the caudate-putamen. These results indicate that the main output of VP neurons receiving inputs from the shell of the accumbens is heavily directed to the m-MD, whereas a small number of core neurons appear to influence the central MD via the lateral VP. Further segregation in the flow of information to the MD is apparent in the organization of VP and GP projections to subdivisions of the RTN that give rise to MD afferents. Collectively, these data provide a morphological basis for the control of the thalamocortical system by ventral striatal regions, in which parallel connections to the RTN may exert control over activity states of cortical regions.

Persistent activity is observed in many cortical and subcortical brain regions, and may subserve a variety of functions. Within the prefrontal cortex (PFC), neurons transiently maintain information in working memory via persistent activity patterns; however, the mechanisms involved are largely unknown. The present study used intracellular recordings from deep layer PFC neurons in vivo and patch-clamp recordings from PFC neurons in organotypic brain slice cultures to examine the ionic mechanisms underlying persistent activity states evoked by various inputs. Persistent activity had consistent features regardless of the initiating stimulus; it was driven by non-NMDA glutamate receptors yet consisted of an initial GABA mediated component, followed by a prolonged synaptically mediated inward current that maintained the sustained depolarization on which rode many asynchronous GABA-mediated events. The stereotyped nature of the multiple-component persistent activity pattern reported here might be a common feature of interconnected cortical networks but within PFC could be related to the persistent activity required for working memory.

Schizophrenia is a substantially heritable disorder associated with disrupted neural transmission, as well as dysfunction of brain systems involved in higher cognitive processes. Among the several putative candidate genes for schizophrenia, the gene encoding dystrobrevin-binding-protein-1 (aka dysbindin) is associated with cognitive impairments, including memory and attention deficits, in both schizophrenia patients and non-schizophrenic individuals. The mechanism underlying these deficits is thought to be based in changes in glutamatergic and dopaminergic function within corticostriatal networks, circuitry known to be critical for schizophrenia. Recent support for this hypothesis derives from the study of mice with a null mutation in the dysbindin gene that exhibit memory dysfunction and abnormalities in excitatory neurotransmission in prefrontal and hippocampal networks. At a cellular level, dysbindin is thought to mediate pre-synaptic glutamatergic transmission. Here, we investigated whether loss of dysbindin expression also affects postsynaptic NMDA receptor function. We show that decreases in dysbindin are associated with specific decreases in NMDA-evoked currents in prefrontal pyramidal neurons, as well as decreases in expression of the obligatory NMDA receptor subunit (NR1). Furthermore, the degree of NR1 expression directly correlates with performance on a spatial working memory task, providing a mechanistic explanation for cognitive changes previously associated with dysbindin expression. These data show a significant down-regulation of NMDA receptors due to dysbindin deficiency and illuminate molecular mechanisms mediating the association between dysbindin insufficiency and cognitive impairments associated with schizophrenia, encouraging study of the dysbindin/NR1 expression association in humans with and at risk for the disease.

Stimulation of α 2 -noradrenergic (NA) receptors within the PFC improves working memory performance. This improvement is accompanied by a selective increase in the activity of PFC neurons during delay periods, although the cellular mechanisms responsible for this enhanced response are largely unknown. Here we used current and voltage clamp recordings to characterize the response of layer V-VI PFC pyramidal neurons to α 2 -NA receptor stimulation. α 2 -NA receptor activation produced a small hyperpolarization of the resting membrane potential, which was accompanied by an increase in input resistance and evoked firing. Voltage clamp analysis demonstrated that α 2 -NA receptor stimulation inhibited a caesium and ZD7288-sensitive hyperpolarization-activated (HCN) inward current. Suppression of HCN current by α 2 -NA stimulation was not dependent on adenylate cyclase but instead required activation of a PLC-PKC linked signalling pathway. Similar to direct blockade of HCN channels, α 2 -NA receptor stimulation produced a significant enhancement in temporal summation during trains of distally evoked EPSPs. These dual effects of α 2 -NA receptor stimulation -membrane hyperpolarization and enhanced temporal integration -together produce an increase in the overall gain of the response of PFC pyramidal neurons to excitatory synaptic input. The net effect is the suppression of isolated excitatory inputs while enhancing the response to a coherent burst of synaptic activity.

Behavioral genetic studies of humans have associated variation in the DTNBP1 gene with schizophrenia and its cognitive deficit phenotypes. The protein coded for by DTNBP1, dysbindin, is expressed within forebrain glutamatergic neurons, where it interacts with proteins involved in vesicular trafficking and exocytosis. In order to further delineate the cellular, physiological and behavioral phenotypes associated with reduced dysbindin expression, we conducted studies in mice carrying a null mutation within the dtnbp1 gene. Dysbindin mutants exhibited impairments of spatial working memory as compared with wild-type controls; heterozygous mice exhibited intermediate levels of cognitive dysfunction. Deep layer pyramidal neurons recorded in the prefrontal cortex of mutant mice exhibited reductions in paired-pulse facilitation, and evoked and miniature excitatory post-synaptic currents, indicating a difference in the function of pre-synaptic glutamatergic terminals, as well as elevated spike thresholds. Taken together, these data indicate that dysbindin potently regulates excitatory transmission in prefrontal cortex, potentially through a pre-synaptic mechanism, and consequently modulates cognitive functions depending upon this brain region, providing new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying cortical dysfunction in schizophrenia.