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Histamine Excites Striatal Dopamine D1 and D2 Receptor-Expressing Neurons via Postsynaptic H1 and H2 Receptors

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Abstract

The central histaminergic nervous system, originating from the tuberomammillary nucleus (TMN) of the hypothalamus, widely innervates almost the whole brain, including the basal ganglia. Intriguingly, the histaminergic system is altered in parkinsonian patients. Yet, little is known about the effect and mechanisms of histamine on different types of neurons in the basal ganglia circuitry. Here, by using anterograde tracing, immunostaining, patch clamp recording, and single-cell qPCR techniques, we investigate the histaminergic afferents in the striatum, the major input structure of the basal ganglia, as well as the effect of histamine on the striatal GABAergic medium spiny projection neurons (MSNs). We report a direct histaminergic projection from the hypothalamic TMN to the striatum in rats. Furthermore, histamine exerts a strong postsynaptic excitatory effect on both dopamine D1 and D2 receptor-expressing MSNs. The concentration-response curves and the EC50 values for histamine on these two types of MSNs are similar. In addition, dopamine D1 and D2 receptor-expressing MSNs co-express histamine H1 and H2 receptor mRNAs. Both histamine H1 and H2 receptors are co-localized on dopamine D1 and D2 receptor-expressing MSNs and co-mediate the histamine-induced excitation on the two types of neurons. These results suggest that the histaminergic afferent inputs in the striatum may modulate both dopamine D1 and D2 receptor-expressing MSNs by activation of postsynaptic histamine H1 and H2 receptors and thus serve as an important extrastriatal modulator for biasing the direct and indirect pathways to actively regulate functions of the basal ganglia and participate in the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of basal ganglia diseases.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 31330033, 81671107, 31471112, 31771143, 31500848, 91332124, and NSFC/RGC Joint Research Scheme 31461163001); the Ministry of Education, China (SRFDP/RGC ERG grant 20130091140003, and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities 020814380004); and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (grant numbers BK20151384 and BK20140599).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Department of Physiology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, 163 Xianlin Avenue, Nanjing, 210023, China

    Qian-Xing Zhuang, Han-Ting Xu, Bin Li, Jian-Jun Wang & Jing-Ning Zhu

  2. Nanjing Institute of Visual Arts, 116 Zhening East Road, Nanjing, 211215, China

    Xu-Juan Lu

  3. School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong, China

    Wing-Ho Yung

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  1. Qian-Xing Zhuang
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  2. Han-Ting Xu
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Correspondence to Jian-Jun Wang or Jing-Ning Zhu.

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All experiments were carried out in accordance with the US National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (NIH Publication 85–23, revised 2011) and complied with the ARRIVE guidelines.

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Zhuang, QX., Xu, HT., Lu, XJ. et al. Histamine Excites Striatal Dopamine D1 and D2 Receptor-Expressing Neurons via Postsynaptic H1 and H2 Receptors. Mol Neurobiol 55, 8059–8070 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12035-018-0976-1

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