Early Cognitive Impairment Behind Nigrostriatal Circuit Neurotoxicity: Are Astrocytes Involved?

MACARENA LORENA HERRERA

ASN Neuro

Portland Press, Ltd. Sage Publishing

Año: 2020 vol. 12 p. 1 - 1

1759-0914

ognitive dysfunction is one of the most severe nonmotor symptoms of nigrostriatal impairment. This occurs as a result ofprofound functional and morphological changes of different neuronal circuits, including modifications in the plasticity and architectureof hippocampal synapses. Such alterations can be implicated in the genesis and progression of dementia associated with neurodegenerativediseases including Parkinson-like symptoms. There are few studies regarding cognitive changes in nigrostriatal animalmodels. The aim of this study was to characterize the onset of memory deficit after induction of neurotoxicity with 6-hydroxydopamine(6-OHDA) and its correlation with hippocampal dysfunction. For this, we bilaterally microinjected 6-OHDA in dorsolateralCaudate-Putamen unit (CPu) and then, animals were tested weekly for working memory, spatial short-term memory, and motorperformance.We evaluated tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) as a dopamine marker, aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2), a mitochon