Essential Role of Dopamine D2Receptor in the Maintenance of Wakefulness, But Not in Homeostatic Regulation of Sleep, in Mice

• DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.4936-09.2010
• Publication Date: 2010-03-24T17:08:00Z
• Authors: Wei-Min Qu; Xin-Hong Xu; Ming-Ming Yan; Yi-Qun Wang; Yoshihiro Urade; Zhi-Li Huang
• Keywords: Sleep; Homeostasis

Dopamine (DA) and its D 2 receptor (R) are involved in cognition, reward processing, drug addiction. However, their roles sleep–wake regulation remain unclear. Herein we investigated the role of R by using knock-out (KO) mice pharmacological manipulation. Compared with WT mice, KO exhibited a significant decrease wakefulness, concomitant increase non-rapid eye movement (non-REM, NREM) REM sleep drastic low-frequency (0.75–2 Hz) electroencephalogram delta power NREM sleep, especially during first 4 h after lights off. The had decreased mean episode duration increased numbers wake many stage transitions between wakefulness dark period, suggesting instability these mice. When were subjected to cage change or an intraperitoneal saline injection, latency half level for antagonist raclopride mimicked effects GBR12909, dopamine transport inhibitor, was administered intraperitoneally, it induced dose-dependent manner, but arousal effect attenuated one-third genotypes showed identical response terms rebound 2, 4, 6 deprivation. These results indicate that plays essential maintenance not homeostatic sleep.