Nasal administration of orexin A partially rescues dizocilpine-induced cognitive impairments in female C57BL/6 J mice.

Sex difference has been reported in several behavioral endophenotypes of neuropsychiatric disorder in both rodents and humans. However, sex difference in cognitive symptoms associated with neuropsychiatric disorders has not been studied in detail. In this study, we induced cognitive impairment using the NMDA receptor antagonist, dizocilpine (MK-801), in male and female C57BL/6 J mice and performed a visual discrimination task in an automated touchscreen system.

Intracerebroventricular infusion of the selective orexin 1 receptor antagonist SB-334867 impairs cognitive flexibility in a sex-dependent manner.

Orexin neuropeptides are well known for their role in sleep/wake cycle, feeding behavior and motivation-related behaviors. However, their role in cognition is not clearly understood. We recently published that orexin deficiency impairs intra-dimensional set shifting in female homozygous orexin-deficient mice but improves the first reversal phase in male homozygous orexin-deficient mice in the attentional set shifting task (ASST), a well-established rodent test for cognitive flexibility.

BDNF haploinsufficiency induces behavioral endophenotypes of schizophrenia in male mice that are rescued by enriched environment.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is implicated in a number of processes that are crucial for healthy functioning of the brain. Schizophrenia is associated with low BDNF levels in the brain and blood, however, not much is known about BDNF's role in the different symptoms of schizophrenia. Here, we used BDNF-haploinsufficient (BDNF) mice to investigate the role of BDNF in different mouse behavioral endophenotypes of schizophrenia.

Orexin deficiency modulates cognitive flexibility in a sex-dependent manner.

Cognitive flexibility is an important executive function and refers to the ability to adapt behaviors in response to changes in the environment. Of note, many brain disorders are associated with impairments in cognitive flexibility. Several classical neurotransmitter systems including dopamine, acetylcholine and noradrenaline are shown to be important for cognitive flexibility, however, there is not much known about the role of neuropeptides.

Functional architecture of reward learning in mushroom body extrinsic neurons of larval Drosophila.

The brain adaptively integrates present sensory input, past experience, and options for future action. The insect mushroom body exemplifies how a central brain structure brings about such integration. Here we use a combination of systematic single-cell labeling, connectomics, transgenic silencing, and activation experiments to study the mushroom body at single-cell resolution, focusing on the behavioral architecture of its input and output neurons (MBINs and MBONs), and of the mushroom body intrinsic APL neuron.

Aversive olfactory associative memory loses odor specificity over time.

Avoiding associatively learned predictors of danger is crucial for survival. Aversive memories can, however, become counter-adaptive when they are overly generalized to harmless cues and contexts. In a fruit fly odor-electric shock associative memory paradigm, we found that learned avoidance lost its specificity for the trained odor and became general to novel odors within a day of training.