Journal
NEURON
Volume 84, Issue 1, Pages 164-176Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2014.08.058
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Funding
- NIH [R00-DA26417, R01-DA35821]
- NARSAD Young Investigator Grant
- Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation Scholars Award
- NIH T32 grant [GM007250]
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Striatal dopamine transmission underlies numerous goal-directed behaviors. Medium spiny neurons (MSNs) are a major target of dopamine in the striatum. However, as dopamine does not directly evoke a synaptic event in MSNs, the time course of dopamine signaling in these cells remains unclear. To examine how dopamine release activates D2-receptors on MSNs, G protein activated inwardly rectifying potassium (GIRK2; K-ir 3.2) channels were virally over-expressed in the striatum, and the resulting outward currents were used as a sensor of D2-receptor activation. Electrical and optogenetic stimulation of dopamine terminals evoked robust D2-receptor inhibitory postsynaptic currents (IPSCs) in GIRK2-expressing MSNs that occurred in under a second. Evoked D2-IPSCs could be driven by repetitive stimulation and were not occluded by background dopamine tone. Together, the results indicate that D2-receptors on MSNs exhibit functional low affinity and suggest that striatal D2-receptors can encode both tonic and phasic dopamine signals.
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