Prefrontal dopaminergic system and its role in working memory and cognition in spinal cord‐injured rats

New Findings What is the central question of this study? How does spinal cord injury affect prefrontal cortex function and the expression of dopamine receptors? What is the main finding and its importance? Spinal cord injury impaired cognitive function, which was associated with reduced dopamine rec...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Experimental physiology 2020-09, Vol.105 (9), p.1579-1587
Main Authors: Kheyrkhah, Hasan, Soltani Zangbar, Hamid, Salimi, Omid, Shahabi, Parviz, Alaei, HojjatAllah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
Dopamine
Dopamine receptors
Memory
Paraplegia
Pattern recognition
Prefrontal cortex
Short term memory
Spatial memory
spatial working memory
Spinal cord
Spinal cord injuries
spinal cord injury
Spontaneous alternation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Request full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:New Findings What is the central question of this study? How does spinal cord injury affect prefrontal cortex function and the expression of dopamine receptors? What is the main finding and its importance? Spinal cord injury impaired cognitive function, which was associated with reduced dopamine receptor expression in the prefrontal cortex. The effect of spinal cord injury (SCI) has been studied widely in paraplegia and motor areas of the brain, but its mechanisms in memory and cognitive impairment remain controversial. Here, we focused on the impact of SCI on prefrontal performance via dopamine levels and receptors. We divided 18 male rats into three groups, i.e. control, laminectomy and SCI groups. Laminectomy and SCI were induced at T10 of the spinal cord. One week later, after locomotor recovery, the novel object recognition and T‐maze (spontaneous alternation) tests were applied. After behavioural assessments, the rats were killed and their brain tissues harvested. According to the behavioural findings, cognitive function was impaired in the SCI group (P 
ISSN:0958-0670
1469-445X
DOI:10.1113/EP088537