Opposing roles of D1 and D2 receptors in appetitive conditioning

Previous studies have shown that D-1 receptor blockade disrupts and D-2 receptor blockade enhances long-term potentiation. These data lead to the prediction that D-1 antagonists will attenuate and D-2 antagonists will potentiate at least some types of learning. The prediction is difficult to test, however, because disruptions in either D-1 or D-2 transmission lead to reduced locomotion, exploration, and response execution and are therefore likely to impair learning that requires behavioral responding (including exploration of an environment) during the learning episode. Under a paradigm that minimizes motor requirements, rats were trained to enter a food compartment during pellet presentation. Animals then received tone-food pairings under the influence of D-1 antagonist SCH23390 (0, 0.4, 0.8, and 0.16 mg/kg) or D-2 antagonist raclopride (0, 0.2, 0.4, and 0.8 mg/kg). An additional group received unpaired presentations of tone and food. On a drug-free test day 24 hr later, animals that had been under the influence of SCH23390 (like animals that had received unpaired presentations of tone and food) showed reduced head entries in response to the tone, whereas animals that had been under the influence of raclopride showed increased head entries in response to the tone compared with vehicle controls. These data demonstrate that, under a conditioned approach paradigm, D-1 and D-2 family receptor antagonists disrupt and promote learning, respectively, as predicted by the effects of D-1 and D-2 receptor blockade on neuronal plasticity.