1. Auditory cognitive training improves prepulse inhibition in serine racemase mutant mice
- Author
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Yuri Anjos-Travassos, Stella Costa, Etienne de Villers-Sidani, André Poleto, Gerson D. Guercio, Deborah Costa, Rogerio Panizzutti, Rafaela Chaiben, and Igor F. Rangel
- Subjects
Male ,education ,Racemases and Epimerases ,Hippocampus ,Mice, Transgenic ,03 medical and health sciences ,Mice ,0302 clinical medicine ,Cognition ,Neuroplasticity ,Serine ,Medicine ,Animals ,Prepulse inhibition ,Pharmacology ,Neuronal Plasticity ,business.industry ,Prepulse Inhibition ,medicine.disease ,Cognitive training ,030227 psychiatry ,Acoustic Stimulation ,Schizophrenia ,Serine racemase ,NMDA receptor ,business ,Neuroscience ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery - Abstract
Evidence indicates that neuroplasticity-based cognitive training can improve cognition in patients with schizophrenia, but the individual response to training varies greatly between subjects. Hence, there is a need to understand the neurological underpinnings of cognitive training to reveal predictors of treatment response. D-serine is a crucial modulator of neuroplasticity, and decreased levels of D-serine may contribute to deficits in neuroplasticity in schizophrenia. Interestingly, we observed that training mice to identify auditory oddballs increased extracellular levels of D-serine in the hippocampus during training. Serine racemase (Srr) is the only source of brain D-serine; thus, it is possible that Srr may mediate the response to training. To test this hypothesis, we trained mice that have a mutated version of Srr (SrrY269*/SrrY269*) and reduced levels of D-serine in the same auditory training. SrrY269*/SrrY269* mice showed decreased performance during auditory training (defined as the capacity to discriminate an oddball during a sequence of tones). Importantly, auditory training improved prepulse inhibition (PPI) in SrrY269*/SrrY269* but not in wild-type mice. Finally, D-serine (100 mg/kg i.p.) given 30 min before training sessions to SrrY269*/SrrY269* mice improved training performance, but it did not enhance PPI. Taken together, our results show that D-serine is involved in the response to neuroplasticity-based auditory training and that PPI deficits can be improved by auditory oddball training even in the presence of neuroplasticity deficits.
- Published
- 2020