The current findings are of potential relevance to the understanding of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. Imaging studies reported both deficits in MD and PFC (Andrews et al., 2006; Minzenberg et al., 2009; Weinberger and Berman, 1996) in patients with schizophrenia during cognitive tests. Moreover recent studies have found an altered correlation in the activity of MD and PFC, suggesting that impaired functional connectivity

between these structures might underlie the cognitive difficulties (Minzenberg et al., Alectinib 2009; Mitelman et al., 2005). Structural abnormalities in this circuit have also been reported (Byne et al., 2009; Marenco et al., 2012). However, one limitation of brain imaging is the low temporal resolution that does not allow studying the complex spatial-temporal orchestration of brain activity that is thought to underlie cognition. EEG methods offer a better temporal resolution

and some studies observed that synchronous activity of beta and gamma oscillations are decreased in the cortex of patients with schizophrenia (for a review see Uhlhaas and Singer, 2010). Our results indicate that the engagement of beta synchrony in working memory is not restricted only to cortical areas but could also extend to thalamocortical circuits, and more specifically, that beta-frequency oscillations may underlie thalamocortical communication during working memory performance. selleck products Our Edoxaban results further suggest that disruption of MD-PFC beta synchrony could participate in the generation of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. However, whether this disruption is of primary origin in schizophrenia is hard to determine due to the circular nature of the brain. Postmortem and structural brain imaging studies show morphological abnormalities in the MD that suggest a primary deficit of the MD, at least in a subpopulation of patients (Byne et al., 2009). However, the MD is also part of the

well-described corticostriatal loops in which the striatum projects back to the cortex via the thalamus (Haber and Calzavara, 2009). A primary role of the striatum for the pathogenesis of schizophrenia has been proposed (Simpson et al., 2010). In this context, we previously showed that overexpression of striatal dopamine D2 receptors, as a model for increased D2 receptor function observed in patients, causes PFC-dependent cognitive deficits. These deficits included impairments in the here presented DNMS T-maze working memory task (Kellendonk et al., 2006). One possibility is therefore that altered striatal function could impact on the prefrontal cortex via altering MD activity. Measuring MD-PFC synchrony in striatal D2 overexpressing mice would be a useful test of this hypothesis. In this study, we chose a pharmacogenetic approach to reversibly reduce MD activity.