Destruction of ERP responses to deviance in an auditory oddball paradigm in amyloid infusion mice with memory deficits

PLoS One. 2020 Mar 11;15(3):e0230277. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0230277. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

The amyloid-β (Aβ) oligomer is considered one of the major pathogens responsible for neuronal and synaptic loss in Alzheimer's disease (AD) brains. Although the neurotoxic mechanisms of Aβ have been widely investigated, experimental evidence for the direct linkage between neural signaling and cognitive impairments in association with peptide oligomers is lacking. Here, we conducted an auditory oddball paradigm utilizing an Aβ-infused Alzheimer's disease mouse model and interpreted the results based on Y-maze behavioral tests. We acutely injected Aβ oligomers into the intracerebroventricular brain region of normal mice to induce Aβ-associated cognitive impairments. During the auditory oddball paradigm, electroencephalograms (EEG) were recorded from frontal and parietal cortex of Aβ-infused and control mice. The event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by auditory stimuli showed no significant difference in Aβ-infused mice compared to control mice. On the other hand, the differential ERP signature elicited by oddball sound stimuli was destructed in the Aβ-infused mice group. We noticed that ERP traces to standard and deviant tones were not significantly different in the Aβ group, while the control group showed differences in the amplitude of ERP components. In particular, the difference in the first negative component (N1) between standard and deviant tone, which indexes the sensory memory system, was significantly reduced in the parietal cortex of Aβ-infused mice. These findings demonstrate the direct influence of Aβ oligomers on the functional integrity of cortical areas in vivo. Furthermore, the N1 amplitude difference may provide a potential marker of sensory memory deficits in a mouse model of AD and yield additional targets for drug assessment in AD.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Alzheimer Disease / physiopathology*
  • Animals
  • Evoked Potentials, Auditory*
  • Frontal Lobe / physiopathology
  • Male
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred ICR
  • Parietal Lobe / physiopathology
  • Spatial Memory*

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea grant funded by the Korean Government, No. 2017R1A2B3012659 (JHC), and the National Research Council of Science and Technology of Korea for the project, Development of Solution for Diagnosis, Treatment and Care System of Dementia, CRC-15-04-KIST (JHC); and the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), HI18C0836010018 (YK). This Work was performed at Center for Neuroscience, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.