Habituation reduces novelty-induced FOS expression in the striatum and cingulate cortex

Exp Brain Res. 2005 Nov;167(1):136-40. doi: 10.1007/s00221-005-0061-7. Epub 2005 Oct 29.

Abstract

Exposure to novel environments is known to induce c-fos expression in the cingulate cortex and dorsomedial striatum. This study examined the effects of 1, 3, and 7 days of exposure to sequential exposure to three novel environments. It was hypothesized that the ability of novel environment shuttling (NES) would induce c-fos expression as indicated by cells displaying FOS-like immunoreactivity (FLI) in the striatum and cingulate cortex which would decrease with repeated exposure. NES elicited FLI in both the cingulate cortex and striatum when compared to home-cage controls and this effect was attenuated with repeated exposure. Behavioral measures of activity decreased with repeated exposure suggesting that the decrease in FLI may be due to either a reduction in motor activity or increasing familiarity with the environments.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study

MeSH terms

  • Analysis of Variance
  • Animals
  • Behavior, Animal
  • Cell Count / methods
  • Corpus Striatum / metabolism*
  • Exploratory Behavior / physiology*
  • Gene Expression Regulation / physiology*
  • Gyrus Cinguli / metabolism*
  • Habituation, Psychophysiologic / physiology*
  • Immunohistochemistry / methods
  • Male
  • Oncogene Proteins v-fos / metabolism*
  • Rats
  • Rats, Sprague-Dawley

Substances

  • Oncogene Proteins v-fos