Striatal Patchwork of D1-like and D2-like Receptors Binding Densities in Rats with Genetic Audiogenic and Absence Epilepsies

Evgeniya T Tsyba; Inna S Midzyanovskaya; Lidia M Birioukova; Leena M Tuomisto; Gilles van Luijtelaar; Kenul R Abbasova

doi:10.3390/diagnostics13040587

Striatal Patchwork of D1-like and D2-like Receptors Binding Densities in Rats with Genetic Audiogenic and Absence Epilepsies

Diagnostics (Basel). 2023 Feb 5;13(4):587. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics13040587.

Authors

Evgeniya T Tsyba¹, Inna S Midzyanovskaya², Lidia M Birioukova², Leena M Tuomisto³, Gilles van Luijtelaar⁴, Kenul R Abbasova¹

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119991 Moscow, Russia.
² Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of RAS, 117485 Moscow, Russia.
³ School of Pharmacy, University of Eastern Finland, 70211 Kuopio, Finland.
⁴ Donders Centre for Cognition, Radboud University, 6500 HE Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Abstract

Binding densities to dopamine D1-like and D2-like receptors (D1DR and D2DR) were studied in brain regions of animals with genetic generalized audiogenic (AGS) and/or absence (AbS) epilepsy (KM, WAG/Rij-AGS, and WAG/Rij rats, respectively) as compared to non-epileptic Wistar (WS) rats. Convulsive epilepsy (AGS) exerted a major effect on the striatal subregional binding densities for D1DR and D2DR. An increased binding density to D1DR was found in the dorsal striatal subregions of AGS-prone rats. Similar changes were seen for D2DR in the central and dorsal striatal territories. Subregions of the nucleus accumbens demonstrated consistent subregional decreases in the binding densities of D1DR and D2DR in epileptic animals, irrespective of epilepsy types. This was seen for D1DR in the dorsal core, dorsal, and ventrolateral shell; and for D2DR in the dorsal, dorsolateral, and ventrolateral shell. An increased density of D2DR was found in the motor cortex of AGS-prone rats. An AGS-related increase in binding densities to D1DR and D2DR in the dorsal striatum and motor cortex, areas responsible for motor activity, possibly reflects the activation of brain anticonvulsive loops. General epilepsy-related decreases in binding densities to D1DR and D2DR in the accumbal subregions might contribute to behavioral comorbidities of epilepsy.

Keywords: D1-like DA receptors; D2-like DA receptors; KM rats; WAG/Rij rats; animal epilepsy models; audiogenic epilepsy; convulsive seizures; genetic generalized epilepsy; mixed form of epilepsy; non-convulsive seizures.

Grants and funding

The work was partly funded by RSF, grant N 23-25-00484. E.T. and A.K. received support from the state assignment of Moscow State University, project no. 121032300071-8.