| dc.description.abstract | Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by recurring obsessive thoughts and repetitive behaviors
that are often associated with anxiety and perturbations in cortico-striatal signaling. Given the suboptimal
response of OCD to current serotonergic interventions, there is a need to better understand the psychobiological
mechanisms that may underlie the disorder. In this regard, investigations into adenosinergic processes might be
fruitful. Indeed, adenosine modulates both anxiety- and motor behavioral output. Thus, we aimed to explore the
potential associations between compulsive-like large nest building (LNB) behavior in deer mice, anxiety and
adenosinergic processes. From an initial pool of 120 adult deer mice, 34 normal nest building (NNB)- and 32
LNB-expressing mice of both sexes were selected and exposed to either a normal water (wCTRL) or vehicle
control (vCTRL), lorazepam (LOR) or istradefylline (ISTRA) for 7- (LOR) or 28 days after which nesting
assessment was repeated and animals screened for anxiety-like behavior in an anxiogenic open field. Mice were
then euthanized, the striatal tissue removed on ice and the adenosine A2A receptor expression quantified. Our
findings indicate that NNB and LNB behavior are not distinctly associated with measures of generalized anxiety
and that ISTRA-induced changes in nesting expression are dissociated from changes in anxiety scores. Further,
data from this investigation show that nesting in deer mice is directly related to striatal adenosine signaling, and
that LNB is founded upon a lower degree of adenosinergic A2A stimulation. | en_US |
