Rat prefrontal dopamine and cognitive control: Impaired and enhanced conflict performance.
Abstract
It has been proposed that the cognitive dysfunction observed in patients with schizophrenia reflects a failure in cognitive control, in particular an inability to use task-relevant information to guide behavior. Using a prefrontal-dependent task designed to reflect aspects of cue and response conflict seen in human cognitive paradigms, we examined the influence of prefrontal dopamine receptor manipulation on the contextual control of response conflict. Rats were trained on two biconditional discrimination tasks, one auditory and one visual, in two discriminably different contexts. At test, audiovisual compounds of these training stimuli were presented, in extinction, in each of the training contexts. These compounds were formed in such a way that the individual elements previously dictated different responses during training, termed incongruent trials. Studies have shown that rats use contextual information to disambiguate the conflicting information provided by incongruent compounds, responding in manner that is appropriate to the stimulus element that was trained in the test context. Direct infusion of the D1 receptor agonist SKF-38393 into the prelimbic cortex was found to modulate incongruent trial performance in a manner that was dependent upon baseline performance: animals in the low baseline group demonstrated improved incongruent performance following infusion of SKF-38393 into the prelimbic cortex. In contrast, high performers showed a reduction in accuracy during incongruent compounds. This paradigm provides a reliable framework for assessing the efficacy of preclinical agents in treating the cognitive impairments seen in frontal-related disorders such as schizophrenia.
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Functional studies in adult rodent models link genetic or experimentally induced alterations in DA neuron activity, DA release, and receptor binding to transdiagnostic changes in motivation and cognitive control.
“Functional studies in adult rodent models have linked genetic or experimentally induced alterations in DA neuron activity, DA release, and receptor binding to transdiagnostic changes in motivation and cognitive control [49, 132–135].”
From Adolescent nicotine exposure and persistent neurocircuitry changes: unveiling lifelong psychiatric risks (2025) · cites this paper as [134]
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- Authors
- Haddon, J. E., & Killcross, S.
- Affiliations
- Cardiff University (GB)
- UNSW Sydney (AU)
- Venue
- Behavioral Neuroscience
- Published
- 2011
- Volume
- 125
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 344-349
- ISSN
- 0735-7044 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-0084
- OpenAlex
- W2145724465
- Cited by
- 9
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1 · 2012: 2
- FWCI
- 0.53
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Behavioral Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/EO11969)
- National Health and Medical Research Council (568872)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Schizophrenia research and treatment
- Keywords
- cognitive control, dopamine D1 receptor, SKF 38393, prelimbic cortex, response conflict, contextual control, biconditional discrimination, schizophrenia, cognitive impairment
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cognition, Conditioning, Operant, Conflict, Psychological, Discrimination Learning, Dopamine, Extinction, Psychological, Male, Photic Stimulation, Psychomotor Performance, Rats, Inbred Strains, 2,3,4,5-Tetrahydro-7,8-dihydroxy-1-phenyl-1H-3-benzazepine, Prefrontal Cortex, Dopamine Agonists, Rats
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