Cognitive flexibility is an important mechanism enabling organisms to adapt to their changing environment. Different brain structures are involved in this complex process. It has been repeatedly shown that the striatum is one of the key structures controlling cognitive flexibility. Striatum receives rich input from different brain regions while its output is rather uniform. Striatal functions and signalling are greatly modulated by dopamine and acetylcholine. A number of studies have shown involvement of striatal acetylcholine and its receptors in the control of cognitive flexibility but very little is known about the role of M4 muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. These receptors are inhibitory, and they have been shown to induce long-term depression in striatal medium spiny neurons, therefore opposing the action of the dopamine D1 receptors. We hypothesize that the inhibitory effect of M4 muscarinic acetylcholine receptors may supress spiny projection neurons coding for outdated and no longer effective behavioural strategy and thus they may be necessary for the flexible change of behaviour. In the present thesis, I investigated the effects of pharmacological antagonism of M4 receptors on cognitive flexibility of mice tested in a simple reversal learning paradigm. Key words: striatum; cholinergic...
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:445967 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Tyshkevich, Alexandra |
| Contributors | Janíčková, Helena, Levčík, David |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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