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The role of striatal cholinergic signalling in the control of behaviour
Abbondanza, Alice ; Jakubík, Jan (advisor) ; Bellone, Camilla (referee) ; Svoboda, Jan (referee)
Cholinergic transmission regulates many behavioural domains, ranging from motor activity to cognition. Acetylcholine signalling is mediated by muscarinic and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (mAChRs and nAChRs, respectively). While mAChRs are slow responding metabotropic receptors, nAChRs are ion channels, mediating fast neurotransmission. There is a growing body of evidence suggesting a role of nAChRs as important modulators of behavioural functions. However, as nAChRs consist of many subtypes, depending on their composition in subunits, and as they are expressed by various neuronal populations in different brain regions, their contribution to behavioural control is very complex. To decipher their contribution, it is necessary to selectively target nAChRs expressed not only in particular regions but also by particular neurons with a defined effect on local microcircuits. The goal of the present thesis was to use different genetic strategies to induce regional- and cell-specific deletion of β2-containing nAChRs in the mouse brain, in order to characterize the functional role of these receptors. We focused our work in two brain areas, the striatum and the prefrontal cortex (PFC). In the striatum, we identified the striatal neurons that express one of the most common nicotinic subunits, the β2...
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