Effects of dopamine D4 receptor antagonist on spontaneous alternation in rats.docVIP

Behavioral and Brain Functions BioMedCentral Research Open Access Effects of dopamine D4 receptor antagonist on spontaneous alternation in rats Anette Moustgaard*, Jann Hau and Nanna M Lind Address: Department of Experimental Medicine, University of Copenhagen and University Hospital of Copenhagen, Denmark Email: Anette Moustgaard* - amou@sund.ku.dk; Jann Hau - jhau@sund.ku.dk; Nanna M Lind - nanna.marie.lind@ * Corresponding author Published: 22 October 2008 Received: 30 June 2008 Accepted: 22 October 2008 Behavioral and Brain Functions 2008, 4:49 doi:10.1186/1744-9081-4-49 This article is available from: /content/4/1/49 ? 2008 Moustgaard et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: The present study was a component of a series of studies scrutinising the neuroreceptor substrate of behavioural flexibility in a rat model. Spontaneous alternation paradigms model the natural tendency of rodents to spontaneously and flexibly shift between alternative spatial responses. In the study it was tested for the first time if the neurochemical substrate mediating spontaneous alternation behaviour includes the dopamine D4 receptor. Methods: The acute effects of the highly selective dopamine D4 receptor antagonist L-745,870 on rats performance in a spontaneous alternation paradigm in a T-maze were examined. The paradigm was a food-rewarded continuous trial procedure performed for 20 trials. Results: The spontaneous alternation rate was not affected by the doses of the drug administered (0.02 mg/kg; 0.2 mg/kg; 2 mg/kg), but the position bias of the group receiving the highest L-745,870 dose (2 mg/kg) was significantly increased compared to the group tha