The role of neurotensin receptor 1 on fear memory in mice

Neurotensin (NT) is commonly found in the central nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract and known to play role as a neurotransmitter/neuromodulator/neurohormone. We aimed to investigate the effect of the neurotensin receptor agonist PD149163 and the neurotensin receptor antagonist SR142948 on contextual and cued fear conditioning. In total 174 male Balb/c mice were divided into 29 groups. In the behavioral experiments, the NT receptor agonist PD149163 (0.25, 1, 4 mg/kg) or NT receptor antagonist SR142948 (0.1, 1, 3 mg/kg) were administered to subjects before conditioning on the first day (acquisition phase) or before the test performed 24 h after conditioning (retrieval). Rota-rod test, contextual and cued fear conditioning test were performed in all groups. It was observed that the neurotensin receptor agonist PD149163 had no effect on learning in the cued fear conditioning test, but enhanced retrieval dose-dependently. The neurotensin receptor antagonist SR142948 did not affect the learning and retrieval processes in cued fear conditioning. In the contextual fear conditioning test, neither the neurotensin receptor agonist PD149163 nor the neurotensin receptor antagonist SR142948 had any effect on the learning or retrieval of fear conditioning. Our results show that neurotensin receptor agonist PD149163 increases amygdala dependent cued fear conditioning responses dose-dependently.

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