美国冷泉港实验室A. Kepecs和K. Schmack研究团队合作发现纹状体多巴胺介导小鼠的幻觉样感知。2021年4月2日出版的国际知名学术期刊《科学》杂志发表了这一成果。

他们开发了一项技术，以量化小鼠中的幻觉样感知。幻觉样感知被定义为高可信度的虚假检测，对小鼠进行幻觉相关操作后增加，并与人类自我报告的幻觉相关。幻觉样感知发生之前，纹状体多巴胺水平升高，可通过光遗传学刺激间皮多巴胺神经元来诱导，并可被抗精神病药氟哌啶醇逆转。

这些发现揭示了多巴胺依赖性纹状体回路在幻觉样感知中的因果作用，并为开发基于回路的精神病治疗开辟了新途径。

据介绍，幻觉是精神病的主要症状，归因于大脑中的多巴胺过多。然而，多巴胺产生幻觉的神经回路机制仍然难以捉摸，这主要是因为幻觉一直难以在模式生物中进行研究。

附：英文原文

Title: Striatal dopamine mediates hallucination-like perception in mice

Author: K. Schmack, M. Bosc, T. Ott, J. F. Sturgill, A. Kepecs

Issue&Volume: 2021/04/02

Abstract: Hallucinations, a central symptom of psychotic disorders, are attributed to excessive dopamine in the brain. However, the neural circuit mechanisms by which dopamine produces hallucinations remain elusive, largely because hallucinations have been challenging to study in model organisms. We developed a task to quantify hallucination-like perception in mice. Hallucination-like percepts, defined as high-confidence false detections, increased after hallucination-related manipulations in mice and correlated with self-reported hallucinations in humans. Hallucination-like percepts were preceded by elevated striatal dopamine levels, could be induced by optogenetic stimulation of mesostriatal dopamine neurons, and could be reversed by the antipsychotic drug haloperidol. These findings reveal a causal role for dopamine-dependent striatal circuits in hallucination-like perception and open new avenues to develop circuit-based treatments for psychotic disorders.

DOI: 10.1126/science.abf4740

Source: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6537/eabf4740