Summary Structural plasticity in the adult brain is essential for adaptive behavior. We have found a remarkable anatomical plasticity in the basal ganglia of adult mice that is regulated by dopamine D2 receptors (D2Rs). By modulating neuronal excitability, striatal D2Rs bi-directionally control the density of direct pathway collaterals in the globus pallidus that bridge the direct pathway with the functionally opposing indirect pathway. An increase in bridging collaterals is associated with enhanced inhibition of pallidal neurons in vivo and disrupted locomotor activation after optogenetic stimulation of the direct pathway. Remarkably, chronic blockade with haloperidol, an antipsychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia decreases the extent of bridging collaterals and rescues the locomotor imbalance. These findings identify a role for bridging collaterals in regulating the concerted balance of striatal output, and may have important implications for understanding schizophrenia, a disease involving excessive activation of striatal D2Rs that is treated with D2R blockers.

Structural plasticity in the adult brain is essential for adaptive behaviors and is thought to contribute to a variety of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Medium spiny neurons of the striatum show a high degree of structural plasticity that is modulated by dopamine through unknown signaling mechanisms. Here, we demonstrate that over-expression of dopamine D2 receptors in medium spiny neurons increases their membrane excitability and decreases the complexity and length of their dendritic arbors. These changes can be reversed in the adult animal after restoring D2 receptors to wild-type levels, demonstrating a high degree of structural plasticity in the adult striatum. Increased excitability and decreased dendritic arborization are associated with down-regulation of inward rectifier potassium channels (Kir2.1/2.3). Down-regulation of Kir2 function is critical for the neurophysiological and morphological changes in vivo because virally-mediated expression of a dominant negative Kir2 channel is sufficient to recapitulate the changes in D2 transgenic mice. These findings may have important implications for the understanding of basal ganglia disorders, and more specifically schizophrenia, in which excessive activation of striatal D2 receptors has long been hypothesized to be of pathophysiologic significance.

No abstract