Signaling models for dopamine-dependent temporal contiguity in striatal synaptic plasticity

PLoS Comput Biol. 2020 Jul 23;16(7):e1008078. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008078. eCollection 2020 Jul.

Abstract

Animals remember temporal links between their actions and subsequent rewards. We previously discovered a synaptic mechanism underlying such reward learning in D1 receptor (D1R)-expressing spiny projection neurons (D1 SPN) of the striatum. Dopamine (DA) bursts promote dendritic spine enlargement in a time window of only a few seconds after paired pre- and post-synaptic spiking (pre-post pairing), which is termed as reinforcement plasticity (RP). The previous study has also identified underlying signaling pathways; however, it still remains unclear how the signaling dynamics results in RP. In the present study, we first developed a computational model of signaling dynamics of D1 SPNs. The D1 RP model successfully reproduced experimentally observed protein kinase A (PKA) activity, including its critical time window. In this model, adenylate cyclase type 1 (AC1) in the spines/thin dendrites played a pivotal role as a coincidence detector against pre-post pairing and DA burst. In particular, pre-post pairing (Ca2+ signal) stimulated AC1 with a delay, and the Ca2+-stimulated AC1 was activated by the DA burst for the asymmetric time window. Moreover, the smallness of the spines/thin dendrites is crucial to the short time window for the PKA activity. We then developed a RP model for D2 SPNs, which also predicted the critical time window for RP that depended on the timing of pre-post pairing and phasic DA dip. AC1 worked for the coincidence detector in the D2 RP model as well. We further simulated the signaling pathway leading to Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII) activation and clarified the role of the downstream molecules of AC1 as the integrators that turn transient input signals into persistent spine enlargement. Finally, we discuss how such timing windows guide animals' reward learning.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Calcium Signaling*
  • Calcium-Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinase Type 2 / physiology
  • Computer Simulation
  • Corpus Striatum / physiology*
  • Cyclic AMP-Dependent Protein Kinases / physiology*
  • Dendrites / physiology
  • Dendritic Spines / physiology
  • Dopamine / physiology*
  • Kinetics
  • Learning*
  • Mice
  • Neuronal Plasticity*
  • Neurons / physiology
  • Receptors, Dopamine D2
  • Reward

Substances

  • Receptors, Dopamine D2
  • Cyclic AMP-Dependent Protein Kinases
  • Calcium-Calmodulin-Dependent Protein Kinase Type 2
  • Dopamine

Grants and funding

This work was supported partly by the Strategic Research Program for Brain Sciences ("Bioinformatics for Brain Sciences") from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), CREST (JPMJCR1652 to SI and HK) from the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), the Brain Mapping by Integrated Neurotechnologies for Disease Studies (Brain/MINDS; JP19dm0207001 to SI) from the Japanese Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), the International Research Center for Neurointelligence (WPI-IRCN) at The University of Tokyo Institutes for Advanced Study, and JSPS KAKENHI (17K00404 to HU, 17H06310 to SI, and 26221001 to HK). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.