Abstract
Dopaminergic neurotransmission is considered to play a wide range of important roles in such as motor control, cognition, motivation, learning, and memory. Dopamine activates the direct pathway via the D1 receptor (D1R) and suppresses the indirect pathway via the D2 receptor (D2R) in the basal ganglia circuit. To clarify D1R or D2R‐mediated dopaminergic neurotransmission in more detail, we investigated the role of dopaminergic neurotransmission via dopamine D1Rs in motor function and aversive memory formation using conditional D1R knockdown (D1RcKD) mice, in which the expression of D1Rs can conditionally and reversibly be controlled by doxycycline treatment. It was revealed that dopaminergic neurotransmission via dopamine D1Rs maintains information transmission of the direct pathway of the basal ganglia circuit and promotes motor function. Furthermore, our findings indicated that D1R‐mediated dopaminergic transmission is critical for aversive memory formation, specifically by influencing Arc expression in the cerebral cortex. Here, we mainly present motor control and aversive memory formation using D1RcKD mice, including our recent findings.
