The relationship between brain mRNA levels and behaviour among inbred Lewis rats

Behaviour is derived from complex molecular interactions within the brain, in response to specific environmental stimuli. In some rare cases, the direct causes of behaviour have been attributed to the interactions of a single or small group of gene transcripts and proteins. We conducted two experiments with the hope of defining some of the molecular interactors for four separate behaviours: sugar feeding, locomotor activity in a novel field, and acoustic startle reflex, and prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle reflex, which have been linked to prefrontal cortex dopaminergic function or as predictors of sensorimotor gating in diseases such as schizophrenia. Rats with high and low response phenotypes were selected to determine the differences between these two extremes of behaviour. From our analyses, transcripts of Homer1, a neuronal scaffolding protein which interacts with group1 metabotropic glutamate receptors, were found to be significantly correlated with array data in both experiments, and with behaviour data across three separate tests in the second experiment, indicating that this gene's transcripts and probably downstream protein interactions have a significant correlation with behaviour phenotype in the inbred Lewis rat. Future areas of pursuit for this data should involve modification of the expression of Homer1 in an isolated fashion to determine a pharmacological threshold for differences in behaviour. This SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below. Overall design: Refer to individual Series