Plasticity at synapses between the cortex and striatum is considered critical for learning novel actions. However, investigations of spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) at these synapses have been performed largely in brain slice preparations, without consideration of physiological reinforcement signals. This has led to conflicting findings, and hampered the ability to relate neural plasticity to behavior. Using intracellular striatal recordings in intact rats, we show here that pairing presynaptic and postsynaptic activity induces robust Hebbian bidirectional plasticity, dependent on dopamine and adenosine signaling. Such plasticity, however, requires the arrival of a reward-conditioned sensory reinforcement signal within 2 s of the STDP pairing, thus revealing a timing-dependent eligibility trace on which reinforcement operates. These observations are validated with both computational modeling and behavioral testing. Our results indicate that Hebbian corticostriatal plasticity can be induced by classical reinforcement learning mechanisms, and might be central to the acquisition of novel actions.

Ca 2+ plays a complex role in the differentiation of committed pre-adipocytes into mature, fat laden adipocytes. Stim1 is a single pass transmembrane protein that has an essential role in regulating the influx of Ca 2+ ions through specific plasma membrane store-operated Ca 2+ channels. Stim1 is a sensor of endoplasmic reticulum Ca 2+ store content and when these stores are depleted ERlocalized Stim1 interacts with molecular components of store-operated Ca 2+ channels in the plasma membrane to activate these channels and induce Ca 2+ influx. To investigate the potential role of Stim1 in Ca 2+ -mediated adipogenesis, we investigated the expression of Stim1 during adipocyte differentiation and the effects of altering Stim1 expression on the differentiation process. Western blotting revealed that Stim1 was expressed at low levels in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes and was upregulated 4 days following induction of differentiation. However, overexpression of Stim1 potently inhibited their ability to differentiate and accumulate lipid, and reduced the expression of C/EBP alpha and adiponectin. Stim1-mediated differentiation was shown to be dependent on store-operated Ca 2+ entry, which was increased upon overexpression of Stim1. Overexpression of Stim1 did not disrupt cell proliferation, mitotic clonal expansion or subsequent growth arrest. siRNA-mediated knockdown of endogenous Stim1 had the opposite effect, with increased 3T3-L1 differentiation and increased expression of C/EBP alpha and adiponectin. We thus demonstrate for the first time the presence of store-operated Ca 2+ entry in 3T3-L1 adipocytes, and that Stim1-mediated Ca 2+ entry negatively regulates adipocyte differentiation. We suggest that increased expression of Stim1 during 3T3-L1 differentiation may act, through its ability to modify the level of Ca 2+ influx through store-operated channels, to balance the level of differentiation in these cells in vitro.

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Action discovery and selection are critical cognitive processes that are understudied at the cellular and systems neuroscience levels. Presented here is a new rodent joystick task suitable to test these processes due to the range of action possibilities that can be learnt while performing the task. Rats learned to manipulate a joystick while progressing through task milestones that required increasing degrees of movement accuracy. In a switching phase designed to measure action discovery, rats were repeatedly required to discover new target positions to meet changing task demands. Behavior was compared using both food and electrical brain stimulation reward (BSR) of the substantia nigra as reinforcement. Rats reinforced with food and those with BSR performed similarly overall, although BSR-treated rats exhibited greater vigor in responding. In the switching phase, rats learnt new actions to adapt to changing task demands, reflecting action discovery processes. Because subjects are required to learn different goal-directed actions, this task could be employed in further investigations of the cellular mechanisms of action discovery and selection. Additionally, this task could be used to assess the behavioral flexibility impairments seen in conditions such as Parkinson's disease and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The versatility of the task will enable cross-species investigations of these impairments.

Modulation of calcium channel expression and function in the context of neurotrophin induced neuronal differentiation remains incompletely understood at a mechanistic level. We addressed this issue in the PC12 model neuronal system using patch clamp electrophysiology combined with ectopic expression of the human beta platelet-derived growth factor (betaPDGF) receptor as a surrogate neurotrophin receptor system. PC12 cells ectopically expressing the human betaPDGF receptor were treated with PDGF or nerve growth factor (NGF) for up to 7 days, and Ca2+ channel subtype expression was analyzed using selective pharmacological agents in both whole-cell and cell-attached single channel patch clamp configurations. PDGF-induced upregulation of N- and P/Q-type Ca2+ channel currents completely mimicked upregulation of these currents caused by NGF stimulation of the endogenous TrkA receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK). Neither PDGF nor NGF significantly altered L- or R-type currents. Single channel recordings together with immunocytochemistry implied that growth factor-induced increases in whole-cell Ca2+ currents were a result of synthesis of new channels, and that whereas increased N channel density was apparent in the soma, additional P/Q channels distributed preferentially to extrasomal locations, most likely the proximal neurites. Finally, specific signaling-deficient mutant forms of the betaPDGF receptor were used to show that activation of Src, PI3-kinase, RasGAP, PLCgamma or SHP-2 (some of which are implicated in certain other aspects of PC12 cell differentiation) by RTKs is not required for growth factor-induced Ca2+ channel upregulation. In contrast, activation of the Ras-related G-protein Rap1 was found critical to this process.

Paired helical filaments (PHFs) constitute the majority of filaments in neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs), an Alzheimer's disease (AD) characteristic. PHFs consists of two filaments helically twisted around one another in a regular pattern. The effects of possible PHF-inducing candidates, namely aluminium and glutamate, were observed at the ultrastructural level in this investigation. Rat cerebral explants were exposed to aluminium, citric acid and glutamate singly or combined from 7-12 days in vitro (DIV), while control explants remained in basal medium. On 12 DIV, explants were processed for EM. Three-four EM explants were serially sectioned per condition. Ten 60 nm sections from five systematically sampled areas per explant were collected. One section was randomly chosen per sampled area and all neurons within it observed at 81,200x to record the presence of accumulations of curved filaments (CFs), straight filaments (SFs) or PHFs. Using stereological methods, absolute numbers and the percentage incidence of CFs and SFs were calculated. A significant increase in the frequency of neurons containing CF aggregations in aluminium explants compared to glutamate explants was found. There were no significant differences between conditions for neurons containing SF accumulations. Possible PHFs were observed in one aluminium/glutamate-treated explant. These results suggest that aluminium alone can cause significant formation of accumulations of C- or S-shaped CFs, some of which are double-stranded and twisted around one another regularly. However, structures that were possibly PHF-like were only observed in one aluminium-treated explant, thus making it premature to draw an association between aluminium and the induction of AD-like pathology.