Chapter 3.2.3 Regulatable adenoviral technology in behavioural neuroscience

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses regulatable adenoviral technology in behavioral neuroscience. The use of this regulatable adenoviral vector system which mediates relatively long-term expression greatly facilitates studies of behavior, as it offers a relatively simple and rapid method (compared to transgenesis) of manipulating neuronal gene expression in specific populations of neurons. It is possible, to use this system to manipulate neuronal gene expression following only a single stereotaxic injection of virus. The specific functional or behavioral outcome can then be correlated with the turning on or turning off of gene expression (by the administration or withdrawal of dox) weeks after the initial viral transfection. Importantly, behavioral testing of animals can be undertaken weeks after the initial stereotaxic surgery, so that, the behavioral pretraining can be conducted 1-2 weeks after the injection of the AdTet system and the behavioral testing itself could start once Dox had been administered to turn transgene expression on. Finally, the use of the AdTet system permits the use of within-subjects experimental designs, in which every animal may serve as its own control as it may be tested both with transgene expression turned off and then on.