Background: Potassium channels have been proposed to play a role in mechanisms of neural plasticity, and the\r\nKv4.2 subunit has been implicated in the regulation of action-potential back-propagation to the dendrites.\r\nAlterations in mechanisms of plasticity have been further proposed to underlie various psychiatric disorders, but\r\nthe role of Kv4.2 in anxiety or depression is not well understood.\r\nMethods: In this paper, we analyzed the phenotype Kv4.2 knockout mice based on their neurological function, on\r\na battery of behaviors including those related to anxiety and depression, and on plasticity-related learning tasks.\r\nResults: We found a novelty-induced hyperactive phenotype in knockout mice, and these mice also displayed\r\nincreased reactivity to novel stimulus such as an auditory tone. No clear anxiety- or depression-related phenotype\r\nwas observed, nor any alterations in learning/plasticity-based paradigms.\r\nConclusions: We did not find clear evidence for an involvement of Kv4.2 in neuropsychiatric or plasticity-related\r\nphenotypes, but there was support for a role in Kv4.2 in dampening excitatory responses to novel stimuli.
Loading....