Establishment Of Oculomotor Delayed Response Task, Behavioral Electrophysiological Recording And Behavioral Pharmacological Experimental Platforms In Rhesus Monkey

Schizophrenia is a serious psychiatric disease with an incidence of 1% of the world's population.It is widely recognized that the genes encoding neuregulin-1(NRG1)and its receptor ErbB4 are susceptibility genes for schizophrenia.NRG1/ErbB4 is a regulator of inhibitory synaptic transmission mediated by parvalbumin(PV)-positive interneurons in the hippocampus of rodents,and abnormal NRG1/ErbB4 signal produces schizophrenia-like behavioral phenotype.The prefrontal cortex(PFC)is a higher-order neocortex and participates in many higher cognitive functions,such as attention modulation,working memory,rule learning,and thinking and reasoning.Working Memory is a core cognitive function that depends on the PFC.It is known that schizophrenia is accompanied by a severe deficit in working memory.Working memory requires the coordination among pyramidal cels and interneurons in the dlPFC.Previous study in our laboratory shows that ErbB4 is specifically expressed in PV-positive interneurons in the dlPFC.However,the role of NRG1/ErbB4 in working memory has not been addressed yet.In order to clarify the role of prefrontal cortical NRG1/ErbB4 in working memory,it is necessary to establish oculomotor delayed response(ODR)task paradigm,behavioral electrophysiological recording and behavioral pharmacological platform.The present work successfully trained a monkey with the ODR task within 125 days,recorded high quality firing of dlPFC neurons with Thomas recording system,and tested the efficiency of intra-dlPFC infusion of the GABA receptor agonist muscimol.In addition,we set up a pre-pulse inhibitory(PPI)assessment system to evaluate the sensory gating of the monkey,and found that there was 40-50% PPI inhibitory effect in normal monkey.Thus,the present study laid down a solid basis for studying the role of prefrontal cortical NRG1/ErbB4 in working memory.